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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28158927">Infirmities</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/staywiththething/pseuds/staywiththething'>staywiththething</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Outlast (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Amputation, Amputee Waylon Park, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Blind Character, Blind Eddie Gluskin, Blindness, Disability, Emotional Baggage, Getting to Know Each Other, Happy Ending, Healing, M/M, Oral Sex, Physical Disability</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:27:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>35,196</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28158927</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/staywiththething/pseuds/staywiththething</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after Mount Massive, Waylon thinks he might just be beginning to recover. Until life, never missing an opportunity to kick him while he's down, throws him a curveball from his past he had thought long-since dead.<br/>Down one right leg and a working car, he has to resort to staying with a stranger until his car can be fixed and he can continue with his aimless pilgrimage across America.<br/>Turns out he isn't the only one with a part of him missing after the riot.</p><p>TL;DR - Waylon's missing a leg and Eddie's lost his sight. They somehow make it work, eventually.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eddie Gluskin/Waylon Park</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>71</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>210</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Asunder</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Heyyyy itsa me again - here with yet another fic idea that nobody asked for but you're getting anyway &lt;:3<br/>This year has been a real trip for me (as it has for everyone else, I'm sure) so what better way to see it to the door than with a relatively soft au?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u"> <em> Friday Afternoon</em></span>
</p><p>“You’re in luck,” said the local to the unlucky driver. “There’s no proper place for you to spend the night —a motel I mean— I’m afraid, but I’m sure I got a door for you to knock on to ask about a place to sleep for the next day or two.”</p><p>“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said the driver, rubbing the back of his neck, streaking his skin with grease. Though he had not been the one to lift the car’s hood and get as filthy as the local he flagged down to help him, he was still up to his elbows in oil stains; a symbol of little work made a great deal of. “Are you sure there’s nothing more that can be done?”</p><p>“Sorry, but it don’t look like it. You’ve blown your head gasket, you see,” told the local, gesturing with his thick gloved finger to a part of the car the driver couldn’t tell no better from the rest of the vehicle. “And without any coolant on hand, I wouldn’t feel right sending you back out on the road.” </p><p>The driver nodded as he listened to all of this, not knowing entirely what he was nodding about. He was far better suited to computers, swapping horsepower for HTML. Lisa used to rest her head on his shoulder as he worked and joke about how he’d be much more comfortable at the mission control centre at NASA than spending one minute in only the waiting room of a repair shop. It wasn’t a great joke, but she said it with such love, such gentle mirth, that her tone alone made him smile, the kisses she’d press into his neck a welcome nuisance until they developed into a hand that was leading him away from his desk and upstairs to the bedroom.</p><p>He shook his head, shivering as though the memory repulsed him. Christ, what’s he doing, thinking of her in a time like this? Thoughts of her don’t belong here, on some roadside wasteland, the sun dipping heavily and steadily under the horizon. They were in the final handful of hours of the day now, and he needed to get back onto the road. His leg was giving him more than enough trouble with him just standing here. “What if I went without the coolant?” he asked the stout local. The man looked at him curiously, as if he had asked him about the practicalities of sprouting wings and flying away instead.</p><p>Slowly, the man explained, “Without coolant you run the risk of destroying your whole engine, and then there’s really nothing you can do.”</p><p>The tired driver sighed, looking over his shoulder. Behind him stretched the thin wrist of road he had just travelled down before his car started to exhume white smoke. Beyond that lay large fields of nothing, and above it all a blank slate of pale blue sky. It was growing cold, his flannel doing little to reject the freeze settling over his skin. He dropped a hand to his thigh, poking it through the denim of his jeans and feeling the muscle complain at the dull contact. Shivering again, he conceded. “Alright - how close is the town?”</p><p>“Only a few miles,” assured the local. “I’ll think you’ll be fine to drive it yourself, so long as you go slow and keep an eye on that engine. It should have cooled down a bit by now, but still. Can’t be too careful.  I’ll lead.”</p><p>“Thank-you,” breathed the driver, voice swept up by the dusking wind.</p><p>They climbed into their vehicles and got ready to depart. He clutched the steering wheel with both hands, eyes fixed on the taillights of the local’s pickup truck only a few feet ahead. Glancing at the rearview mirror, he glimpsed the road behind him slimming into insignificance, getting thinner and thinner like an eye closing. He gripped the wheel tighter, the grease on his fingertips staining the leather.</p><p> </p><p>The town was even less than he was expecting. No motel, just as the dungareed local had said. Not even a sign telling incomers of the place’s name, though of course he might have just missed it; it had grown so dark in so little time, and the place was devoid of all light, save for a few weak streetlamps dotted along the sidewalks.</p><p>They pulled into a sparse suburb, the local stopping his truck outside of a squat house; his own, the driver assumed. They climbed out of their cars, the driver remaining by his own with his bag in hand while the local approached the door of the house and rapped on the screen. Soon out came a woman, equal in age and withered stature as the local; his wife, perhaps. The driver watched as they shared a few words, glancing over to him. He waved a stiff hand to the woman, who nodded back easily enough.</p><p>The woman then went back inside and the local came up to him. “I’m afraid the repair shop closes early on Fridays and ain’t open on weekends. There’s some shops that’ll sell you some coolant, but they ain’t open this late into the evening either. ‘Friad you’re gonna have to wait.”</p><p>“It’s alright,” the driver lied. “Anywhere you’d recommend to shop first?”</p><p>“There’s a hardware store that’ll have coolant. I’ll take you there first thing in the morning, if you’d like.”</p><p>“Thank-you, I would.”</p><p>“Now, let’s see about them doors,” the local moved on. “I’d offer you a place with us, but my wife is picky about who she lets in the house, and ever since our kids up and went we had to downsize, so there isn’t much room for you anyhow. You can leave your car here in the meantime.” He opened his truck’s door again and climbed back in.</p><p>“That’s all fine,” said the driver, following his lead and getting in at the other side. The truck reeked of old cigarettes and the sour tang of petrol. It wasn’t all that unpleasant, if a little nauseating.</p><p>“Have you eaten yet? It’s reaching suppertime,” inquired the local as he pulled out of the driveway and started down another dull road bordered with weeds and faded signs.</p><p>“I’m okay for now. I had a big lunch.” He drummed his fingers on top of the duffel bag he had balanced on his lap. “I’m not one to get hungry much,” he prattled on. He’s always preferred coffee and snack bars over a regular diet, even when he was with Lisa, who was always trying her hand at some great new dish to try and sway him over into a healthier lifestyle. “I won’t have you being a smaller jean size than me,” she’d say, her hair in a bun as she loomed over a pot or pan or chopping board, steam dewing her face and stray wisps of hair shaping her jaw. He always thought she was at her most gorgeous when she was toiling, her second-best state being when she was laughing, the third whenever she was asleep. There wasn’t a bad angle to her, every direction was pure love to him. The way her eyes would wrinkle when she smiled, how her nose scrunched when she yawned, the way her lips thinned when she was deep in concentration. He loved it all; still does, though now only in fuzzy memory. </p><p>“Well,” the local said, taking a turn sharp enough to stir him out of his foggy head. “There’s a diner that’s open for another hour if you get peckish. That or there’s a Chinese takeout, but I don’t know the food there all too good. They only started up a couple months ago. I haven’t heard anything troubling yet, though.”</p><p>“I’ll bear that in mind,” he murmured, half of him still in his old kitchen with Lisa, watching her cook for him and the boys. More often than not he spends his time like this, one foot in fantasies, the other in reality. Sometimes he struggled to tell them apart, even now, a year after it all left him. He’d wake up in some room and reach out for his wife, only to not feel her there, hogging the covers. He hates how big beds are to him now, he doesn’t know what to do with all the yards of duvet he suddenly possesses now that there’s no one beside to steal them. He wishes he could go back to having problems like that, where he once thought having Lisa’s cold feet on his back was the worst thing he could wake up to. In reality, the worst thing to wake up to is nothing at all. In every bed he’s ever slept in, he still only sleeps on the left side, because that’s his side. Her’s is on the right, furthest from the door, because that’s how she used to sleep as a girl back when her older brothers used to scare her with stories of monsters coming into her room to snatch her away and use her severed head as a paperweight. </p><p>He can’t believe he remembers all that still, but how could he not? What else is there to remember. These images are his travel companions, unable to keep the real thing so he’s had to resort to past flashes. He has a photo album in his duffel bag, one of the few things he was able to save before he set the Denver house ablaze, but he hasn’t opened it in all the months he’s been carrying it. It rests like a large stone, nested amongst his clothes and toiletries. It’s more of a totem than anything else at this point, a collection of faces, some even his own, or of his thumbs from where he had been partially blocking the camera lens. All of it now abstract and monstrous; too sacred to abandon, too cursed to open.</p><p> </p><p>They came to a stop on the outskirts of the town, before a dirt path that was guarded by a rusting metal gate, a giant heavy chain looped through it and around the metal post it was tied to. On either side of the gate lay nothing but high dry grass, so brittle he thought it looked like clumps of toothpicks rather than nature. It would have been nothing for the local to drive over the grass and around the gate, but no such thing happened. Instead, the local produced a key and handed it to him. “Get out and unlock the chain. Normally I’d suggest we’d walk, but we’re losing light and I don’t fancy stumbling around in the dark.”</p><p>He took the key and exited the truck and opened the gate. Chill wind whipped at his hair, stirring it in all directions. He was cold to the bone now, every end of him complaining. His knuckles groaned from the effort of twisting the key into the chain, his mood low and foot unsuited to the uneven terrain.</p><p>Chain undid, he swung the gate and held it, waving the truck through “Leave it unlocked for now,” shouted the local out his window. “I’ll close it back up on my way out.”</p><p>Back in the truck, they journeyed up the dry path. Coming up was a grey house, taller than any other found in the town. It was slanted, like a tree that grew up shaped by the wind. Its silhouette was rigid, sharp, angular, like a pile of bones. The place was a carcass, not so much rotten as it was just barren, picked clean by passing winds and buzzards.</p><p>There was no driveway out front, only a wide patch of white grass that the local stopped the truck over. “You hang back here for a moment,” he advised. “This one here is nice, but I think it’ll do some good if I explain a few things first.”</p><p>He considered asking if there was nowhere else for him to stay, but the local was already gone and struggling up the porch, knocking on the door to the pale house.</p><p>Through the grimy, rain-streaked window, he squinted out and saw the door open. The doorway was dark, obscuring the view of the person who loomed inside. Whoever it was, they were tall, tall enough to make the local crane his neck back to look up to them. He bounced his good leg as he watched them nod and converse, their murmurings brief and hard to place like the sound of rustled leaves. Eventually, the local turned and gestured to him. Time to go.</p><p>Clutching his bag, he lowered himself onto the dry grass, stifling a hiss as pain spiked his hip. He needs to shower something bad, he’s been driving for hours and the last hour on his feet has done nothing for his condition. </p><p>Approaching the porch of the house, he could hear their voices far more clearly.</p><p>“The guy shot his gasket to bits, y’see,” said the local. “And Mac’s shop ain’t open ‘till Monday, so I was wondering if you’d be fine to house him for the weekend while we wait to get his car sorted all out.”</p><p>The figure, whoever they were, for even this much closer he still couldn’t make out the finer details of their face, merely nodded, mumbled something affirmative to the local and disappeared inside. </p><p>The local followed suit, ushering him inside as well until they both were hanging in the front hallway of the house. It was dark and smelled faintly of roasted vegetables, the scent seemingly embedded into the kitsch wallpaper. Shuffling on into the kitchen, he saw the proper mass of the house’s (assumingly sole) inhabitant. The shape of them was broad and tapered, a vast back travelling into a slim waist. Their shoulders rolled as they stirred something in a pot that boiled upon the stove. Their kitchen was an odd collection of faded colours, the wooden fittings scratched and bleached. Tape and string were wrapped around every cabinet handle, the white refrigerator looking like something out of a fifties housekeeping magazine. Utensils hung from hooks nailed into the walls and several coffee mugs lining the back of the counter were full of cutlery; their arrangement so nonsensically precise it must be intentional. It was very much a <em> used </em> space, but in an empty sense, as though it had long been abandoned by the original owners and has since been passed through many neglectful hands. A hand-me-down from ghosts of the past.</p><p>The local cleared his throat. “So you’re good to let ‘im stay for a night or two, Chet?”</p><p>The figure, the broadly shouldered Chet, nodded, still not moving from the stove. “Of course. Thank-you for bringing him all the way up here, Ben. Give my best wishes to Miriam, tell her I’m almost done with her skirt.”</p><p>The local, Ben, nodded. The driver, glad to relieve him of his duty but also drastically wishing he would stay for longer, only smiled quietly and muttered his thanks as Ben patted his shoulder and left the kitchen. “I’ll see you first thing . . .” he said over his shoulder, only turning when he realised that he hadn’t caught the driver’s name.</p><p>“Jamie,” the driver supplied, saying the name he’s been hiding under for the better part of a year.</p><p>Ben bowed his head briefly. “See you tomorrow, Jamie. Thanks again for this, Chet.”</p><p>“No worries,” called out Chet, still dedicated to his boiling pot. “Travel safe. Remember to lock the gate on your way out.”</p><p>‘Jamie’, leaned out into the hallway, watching Ben’s short form slink out the door and seal it, abandoning him for the time being. He then looked back into the kitchen and swallowed the bubble of nerves that had been building in the back of his throat the moment they drove up here. “Thank-you for agreeing to let me stay here. I promise I won’t be a bother. Just as soon as my car is back to normal, I’ll be on my way.”</p><p>“Sounds like as sound a plan as any,” mused Chet. The driver observed the back of the man’s head, wondering why the shape of it seemed so odd to him. Watching the man was quickly becoming like watching an illusion, like when you position a mirror before another mirror and create a void of reflections. He felt as though he’s seen all this before, that head, that back, those shoulders, but differently. Different lighting, and certainly not in any kitchen. But where? He had the strongest urge to see the man’s face, but feared what he would be met with. Nervously, he asked, “Is there a place where I can put down my things? I don’t have much.” He swung his duffel bag to illustrate, but the gesture was lost on Chet, who had yet to turn around.</p><p>“Of course. There’s a spare room upstairs, second door to the left. Though I can’t promise you much with it - it’s been a while since I’ve been in there myself.”</p><p>“Thanks. Could I also trouble you for a shower?”</p><p>“Not at all,” said Chet, his words so deep yet airy. “It’s at the other end of the hall where the spare room is, on the right. If you need anything else, just shout.” There was something so strange about his voice, too, as though it were playing from an old record. So damn familiar.</p><p>Grateful for the opportunity to leave, the driver made his way up the languid wooden staircase and found the bathroom first (for reference) before continuing onto the spare room. It was quaint, with a bed that was neither uncomfortably small or comfortably large, the same ghastly yellow and pink wallpaper found downstairs adoring the walls. He sat down on top of the bed, glad to take the pressure off his legs. He then made light work of taking off his shoes, socks and jeans, now free to assess the damage done to his prosthesis. He pushed down the thick lock on his prosthesis, unlocking the pin on his liner before slipping the socket off. Resting his prosthesis and liner against the bed, he turned and dug through his bag until he pulled out his crutches and unfolded them. Putting them aside, he grabbed a washcloth and a bar of soap he had wrapped in some plastic for safekeeping. Wrapping the washcloth around the soap, he tucked the small bundle under his armpit and slipped his arms into the holds of his crutches and rose from the bed.</p><p>Crutched, he made his way out of the room and into the bathroom. It was just like the rest of the house; out of date and out of love. Tiles were cracked and mould was living along the windowsill, the small space frozen and cold, save for a fluffy bath mat beside the tub that provided little warmth to his remaining barefoot. He sighed, slightly shaky from the day and tried to consider himself lucky. After a year of nothing but middling motel bathrooms, at the very least this place had character, even if that character was that of a sea creature preserved in a block of ice, cold and unmoving. The whole room felt like what he imagined the inside of a skull would feel like, smooth and hollow and ripe with echoes.</p><p>What followed was a routine he had undergone ever since he woke up with a quarter of himself missing in a Denver hospital bed. He stripped and ran the shower, seating himself at the bottom of the bathtub and letting the warm water rush over him, scrubbing his skin clean of oil stains and grease. He then unwrapped the washcloth and soap and worked up a soft lather to clean the sweat and strain off of what’s left of his right thigh. He inspected the stump for any signs of irritation, finding none. He dragged the washcloth over the half-limb and the rest of himself, the hot water and resulting steam filling his lungs and melting whatever tension he had felt earlier. He then spent a little while resting his head back and letting the water cleanse him like rain, trying to imagine he was someplace else. </p><p>
  <em> The two of them hunched over the side of the bath, he armed with a rubber octopus, she with a sponge. Their sons sit giggling in the shallow water, the older playing with his own rubber ornament (a pink hippo, he thinks) while she runs water over his arms and chest. Her shirt sleeves are rucked high up her arms, as are his, their gold wedding bands glimmering wet on their fingers under the bathroom light. He soars the octopus over the head of the younger, making aeroplane noises, because he doesn’t know what actual sound an octopus makes. The baby boy gurgles and squeals, sending bubbles and water flying as he tries to grasp it. He smiles, she smiles, they’re all smiling. There is love in everything at that moment, and he thinks it’ll last for a thousand years.  </em>
</p><p>He shuts the water off and hauls himself out of the tub, sitting on top of the toilet lid and patting his stump dry with a towel. He takes his time, just as the prosthetist at the hospital had shown him. He hates how careful he has to be with himself now, acting as though he was some delicate thing that could be brought down with a sweat-induced bacterial infection on a leg that was no longer attached to him. He can feel it sometimes, when he gets out of bed and swears he can feel his foot touch the ground. Other times he imagines he can feel her hand on his knee, like she used to when they were wrapped up in one another on the couch during a movie. She’d trace little circles on his kneecap and make yet another poorly executed joke about his abundance of leg hair, and then he’d blow air into her ear until she squealed and wrapped her arms around his neck. The movie would then go on forgotten in the second act as they folded further into one another, laughing and loving and never knowing of the storm approaching. </p><p>He should be better at thinking of these things, should be better at putting them in the past. But they’re not just in the past, not to him. Without these visits, these instances that he can swaddle himself in and numb himself amongst, he has to face the bitter wind of what’s actually here. And right now, in this cold white bathroom with one less leg and one less family, he doesn’t know if the world will ever be as open to him as it once appeared.</p><p>He is a haunted man, now. Haunted and hunted. These memories are his life-source, wringing them of their nectar until there’s nothing left to give. He only hopes he can stay in good memories, in the soft orange glow of his wife and kids, and not that crude green glow of the other place, the other times that are a world in their own right; a Hell of their own making.</p><p>But that’s the beauty of memories, they stay away, they know to keep their distance so long as you draw the line between you and them firmly enough. He keeps them locked and takes them out when necessary like old jewellery. He wears his family often and leaves the rest trapped. What’s horrible is in the past and long dead, it cannot touch him, and neither can the good things. Though he is frightfully alone, he is also safe.</p><p>With a mind still glued to memories of bath time and love, he threw his crutches back on and made his way back into his room, pulling on a fresh shrinker around his half-limb. Whether it be the steam from the shower or Chet felt inclined to up the thermostat, the house was growing marginally less frozen and so he threw on a pair of shorts before leaving to descend back into the kitchen.</p><p>He was barely halfway down the stairs (he always took stairs slowly in crutches, lest he risks losing his head as well) when he heard Chet speak out to him, “Good shower?”</p><p>“Yes, thank-you,” he replied, nerves looser now that he was fresher. He wondered if Ben had explained to Chet about his ‘situation’, but doubted even Ben himself had noticed what he was missing. Perhaps he ought to have warned Chet beforehand, but he doubts it’d be anything too horrific to learn. He just hopes Chet doesn’t start becoming like how other people become when they put two and two together and start pussyfooting around him, as if he were roadkill that they didn’t know how to scrape off the road.</p><p>“If I had known I would be having company I’d have made you something to eat in advance,” said Chet. “Are you hungry? I can make some more soup if you’d like. It’s not much but it’ll keep you fed for the time being, I assure you.”</p><p>“Oh, there’s no need,” he replied, finishing the final step. “I don’t want to be a burden. I’m not that hungry anyhow.”</p><p>“Nonsense, darling!” cried Chet, freezing him. His crutches faltered and his body stilled, suddenly winded. Chet went on, unaware of the terrified state of his guest in the hallway, “It’d be no effort on my part, so long as you don’t mind waiting a short while for it. Better yet, you can have mine instead while it’s still warm.”</p><p>“There’s really no need . . .” he murmured, advancing towards the kitchen. He soon (far sooner than he would have liked) came to the doorway and turned inside, seeing his host seated at the head of a small wooden table in the middle of the kitchen, lowering a bowl of soup onto a cork placemat.</p><p>Hearing his entry, his host looked up to him, only he wasn’t looking <em> at </em> him. He wasn’t looking at anything, truth be told, and with a plummeting stomach he realised why; why his host’s eyes, no longer the electric blue he remembers them, were now only a milky, fog-like white.</p><p>Blindly, Eddie Gluskin smiled to him. “Don’t be shy now,” he said, in that melody of a voice. “Sit down and help yourself.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Alms</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Chapter 2 bb!! hope ya like it!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>Mournful and fair, warm and well looked after</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <em>
      <span>Friday Evening</span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please, sit,” Gluskin insisted, pupils glazed and cast upwards, blankly observing the air above Waylon’s head. Waylon swallowed and did as instructed, swinging himself over to the table and drew a chair. He chose a seat at Gluskin’s side, leaning his crutches against the table. As he clattered, the ex-patient’s mouth dimmed into a frown. “You should have told me that you had those,” he said, gesturing loosely in the direction of the crutches. “I’d’ve found you somewhere downstairs to sleep, save you the struggle of going up and down all those steps.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s all good, I can manage,” said Waylon, regarding him closely. “I don’t like to be treated any differently, you see.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin hummed, eyes seeming to glimmer. Waylon couldn’t believe it. Without the blood and the blisters, now with a slight stubble along his jaw and a wildly overgrown undercut, he was alarmingly normal. Tranquil, even; the lesions on his face having smoothed over into thin silver rivers that pooled around his eyes. The beast, the Groom, the thing that had hunted him in the depths of Mount Massive no longer existed, at least physically. Here, in a sweater, smiling and serving up soup, he seemed almost human. Harmless, the way a knife can be harmless until you pick it up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin rose from his seat and went to the counter, where he began to root around in various cupboards, hands lightly gliding over tins and boxes. “I understand what you mean,” he sighed, bending into a cupboard to retrieve some potatoes. “I don’t like to be coddled, either. I’ve always found people’s sympathy irritating and counterproductive.” Waylon watched him in rigid intrigue as the man reached a hand over one of the large mugs along the counter and gripped a peeler. As he flayed the potatoes over an open trash can, he looked over to the table where Waylon sat. “You ought to eat, lest you want your soup to run cold.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cautiously, Waylon obeyed, taking his spoon and plunging it into the creamy substance. Spoon loaded, he sipped some and cursed its taste. It was lovely, creamy, with not a lump to be found. He distantly worried about it being drugged, and he’d soon wake up in Gluskin’s basement, chained to a wall where the ex-patient could pick up where he left off at the asylum. But it was the best meal he’s had in months, and if he were going to be drugged, he was at least going to get some good food out of it first. Not wanting to gorge himself, he stirred it and attempted conversation, hand jittering as he muddled the bowl. “Have you always lived like this, then?” It was a question with many legs, designed to be taken any which way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you mean blind? Or here alone?” asked the ex-maniac, moving away from the trash can with his exposed potatoes and resting them on a surface to begin dicing. Casually he produced a knife from a drawer and began chopping them along with an onion, the act so fluid you’d think he could see it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Either or,” Waylon supposed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, though I’ve always preferred it, I haven’t always lived alone. I’ve only been here six months or so, but I think I manage well enough.” With the potatoes and onion diced, he flicked the stove back on and dropped a pat of butter into a saucepan. The second the butter began to hiss, he scraped the ingredients into it and covered the pan. “As for the blind thing, I’d say it’s only been, oh, just shy of a year since I lost my sight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How’d you lose it?” he said, taking another sip from his spoon while Gluskin dropped some stock into another saucepan of boiling water.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Burst blood vessels, the doctors told me. Brought along by some kind of trauma. Stress, I reckon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry to hear that,” Waylon lied. Burst vessels don’t hold a candle to the damage he dealt inside the asylum. Fucker isn’t even struggling. Whatever happened to that metal rod that Waylon left driven through his gut?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t be sorry, I’m not,” said Gluskin, lifting the lid on one of the saucepans to poke at the simmering potatoes and onions with a knife. “What about you? Ben failed to tell me about your condition on the porch.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think Ben even noticed. I try not to make it a thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin hummed. “I get that. When I lost my sight, the doctors gave me a pair of sunglasses, told me I might like to wear them to make myself feel more comfortable. I told them to go fuck themselves.” The harsh curse grated at Waylon’s ear, even though he had heard the man holler much worse in the basement of Mount Massive. Something about the silence around them made everything all the more heightened; the scrape of his spoon against his bowl, the sound of the water boiling, Gluskin drumming his fingers on the counter. All of it so little yet so much. Gluskin continued, “I figured that if I’m going to be blind, the least I can do is be upfront about it. Naturally, I did my fair share of whining and fumbling at first, but once I developed my own way of doing things, I soon realised nothing had to be lost over it, least of all my dignity. Not saying you are doing anything wrong with hiding yourself, that is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess I just don’t like to make a spectacle of myself,” murmured Waylon, sipping at the glass of water Gluskin had provided alongside his bowl. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin said nothing, and they continued in silence. Ten minutes later he added the vegetables into the pot of water and poured in milk, all before using a food processor to blend it together. Now with his own bowl, he joined Waylon at the table, grinding pepper into his soup and humming around his spoon as he tasted it, satisfied. “So,” he began, head tilting, “what brings you all the way out here? It can’t be for the scenery, surely. Not that I’d be a great judge for that kind of thing, obviously.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He brushed over Gluskin’s wry attempt at humour, not knowing how to take his ex-assailant trying to joke around. “I’m on a road trip of sorts,” he explained, trying to be vague. “I was on my way to Tulsa when I broke down.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s in Tulsa?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Somewhere to sleep for the night, before I move onto someplace else.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So there’s no plan? You’re just out in the world, alone?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Essentially.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin ground his jaw, the mist in his eyes swirling. “Are you ever going to stop?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon lowered his spoon. “Excuse me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin shook his head. “I’m sorry, what I meant to say was, is there an endpoint to your travels? A destination?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It would have been wise to lie at this point, to not make it so obvious that, no, he had no idea when he would stop, if he ever would or even could. There was no incentive for him to, no family to tend to, nor any friends to visit. There was no big red ‘X’ on his map, where treasure and rest awaited him. No home. His life was held in perpetual suspension, composed of gas station coffee breaks and shitty motel stays. So long as there were roads, he would feel forever inclined to travel down them. “You know, I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I supposed I never considered an endpoint.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin nodded. “It must be nice, to be able to go wherever you please, see whatever you wish. I’m lucky if I can so much as tell night from day any more.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” he said limply.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now what did I say about that word, darling?” said Gluskin, unable to see the colour drain from Waylon’s face as he drugged up that hideous word once more. “I can tell you don’t want me to treat you with any special sorrow, so I expect the same of you for me. Though I admit, I am curious as to how you wound up as you are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon, no longer hungry, dropped his spoon into his near-drained bowl. A sudden pain spiked his non-existent calf, A ‘phantom pain’, his prosthetist had warned him; like a memory felt in his soul. He lowered his hand to the end of his thigh, massaging the warped skin to try and regain some sensitivity. “Do you just want words?” he said. “Or would you prefer the full . . . picture?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man shrugged, his mountainous shoulders bunching the knit-jumper he wore. “If you think it would help me better contextualise.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His imaginary leg throbbed, reminding him of what had happened last time he was so close in Gluskin’s presence, back when he could still run unassisted and was scared for his life. Danger, his phantom limb warned, and Waylon tasted the memory of blood under his tongue. He swallowed and spoke, “Give me your hand, then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin blinked, the action startling Waylon; he had forgotten that, blind or not, it was still a universal function all bodies do, not unlike how he still sometimes tries to scratch his missing ankle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gently, Eddie offered his hand, palm up on the table. His fingertips were crisscrossed with white scarring, and he dreaded to wonder if some of them were a result of stringing up bodies. Waylon took it at the wrist, the slightest pulse in the blind man’s veins beating in his grip as he brought his hand under the table and rested it on the soft ledge of where his right thigh ended. At the contact both of their breathing hitched. Gluskin’s lips parted and closed, as if he was going to say something but thought better of it. Waylon feared that he had been too bold, that through some strange bond first formed between them at Mount Massive, all it took was for Gluskin’s hand to grace his skin and the ex-patient would realise instantly who he was touching under his table and offering soup so freely to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He searched Gluskin’s face for a sign, spreading the man’s hand over the smoothly marred flesh. There were patches of sensitivity and numbness at the end of the stump, Gluskin’s thick fingers lighting him up in places and chilling him in others, reaching him through even the thick layer of his shrinker. Overall his palm was warm, heavy, anchoring. Gluskin’s eyes were angled ahead, to the kitchen entranceway and the hallway beyond, his head not even a fraction turned in Waylon’s direction. But still, Waylon, the lonesome traveller, continued to search him, for a wrinkle in his brow or a twitch in his mouth; some subtle indication that he was aware of just who he was with, and what he had done to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But there was no lightning flash of recognition, and the fog remained firm and thick over Gluskin’s eyes. He slipped his hand out of Waylon’s hold and rested it back upon the tabletop. Aheming, he twitched his head over to Waylon. “How long has it been like that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Couple months shy of a year,” Waylon told him. “Just like you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin nodded, muttering quietly, “Just like me.” Then, even quieter, “How’d it happen?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Waylon, God help him, said, “I was running and fell down an elevator shaft. I landed on a piece of wood that stuck itself into my calf. By the time I got it seen to, the infection had spread past my knee.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And why were you running in the first place?” Gluskin asked. It was so silent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I was being chased,” said Waylon, voice halfway between a hiss and a whisper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There then came a loud knocking and both of them shot back in their chairs. Gluskin stood up immediately, the scraping of his chair against the floorboards the loudest noise Waylon’s ever heard in his entire life. He glanced up at the ex-patient, and Gluskin inched his head vaguely down to him, eyes never wholly trained on him. The knocking came again. “I’ll get it,” he mumbled, making an expert beeline out the kitchen and towards the front door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The moment he left, Waylon collected his crutches and hauled himself over to the counter, rooting as inconspicuously as he could through the drawer he saw Gluskin take a knife from earlier. He soon found his own blade, a small paring knife that he tucked into the lining of his shrinker. He has a gun upstairs in his bag as well, a discreet pistol that’s fully loaded, but he’s never used it before and doubts he’d be able to get to it in time. Down the hallway he heard Gluskin and the voice of another:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“ . . . figured it’d be a shame to let it all go to waste, y’know? Plus Mim felt bad about not being able to keep him ‘round, so she hopes this’ll make up for it . . .” It was Ben, the kindly local. If he screamed, would he come to his aid? Even if he did, he doubts Ben would be able to surpass Gluskin. Even without the power of sight, Gluskin was a formidable behemoth. He’s seen what Gluskin can do to men far younger and stronger than the likes of Ben, eyes or not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course, thank-you so much Ben. We’ve already eaten tonight, however, I’ll be sure to make good use of this for tomorrow’s supper. Give Miriam my thanks, won’t you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“‘Course, Chet. How’s your guest doin’? He settlin’ in alright?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s doing fine. Still tired from the day, I gather. Jamie? Ben’s here, he wants to know how you’re doing,” Gluskin called. Cursing under his breath, Waylon made his way into the hallway. At the end stood Gluskin (or ‘Chet’) and Ben, the door to the grand outside beyond them, dark and vast and just within reach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Heya, Ben,” said Waylon, not moving any closer to the door out of worry that severe movement would cause the knife to fall out from his shrinker and fall to the floor. Instead he chose to hang in the hallway like a decoration well past its season. But despite his distance, it did little to hide himself, and soon enough Ben’s poor eyes soon landed upon the empty space under his thigh. “Shit, Jamie. What was I doing, making you get the gate up here and carrying all your stuff by yourself? I never knew—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s quite alright, Ben,” said Gluskin. “No harm done.” He shook the Tupperware box in his hand, “Thanks again for the food.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shaken back, Ben nodded and straightened his cap. “Sure. Any time. Bye again, Jamie. I’ll call the house before I pick you up tomorrow.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bye again, Ben,” called Waylon. Once Ben’s footsteps could no longer be heard on the porch, Gluskin closed the door and drifted past him back into the kitchen. Turning with him, Waylon hung in the entrance as Gluskin felt for a free space in his fridge. “I think I might go to bed, if you don’t mind,” he said to the mutilator’s back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you want. You sure you don’t want to stick around for dessert? I still have half a cherry pie left that was given to me by Mrs. Fisher, and trust me when I say you haven’t known regret until you’ve passed on a pie by Mrs. Fisher.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If I had the right appetite for it, I would,” he said numbly. “But it’s like what you said at the door, I’m quite tired.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin looked over his shoulder, eyes like white voids. “Very well, I don’t want to keep you up if you’d rather be in bed. I suspect Ben has plans of getting you down to the hardware store before the crack of dawn anyhow.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon said nothing, merely turning around and heading over to the staircase, leaving Gluskin to cut and hum in the kitchen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <em>
      <span>Friday Night</span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Back in the bathroom he had used the excuse of needing toothpaste for his toothbrush as a reason to scour Gluskin’s bathroom cabinet. He opened the mirrored cabinet to see shelves full of pills, all enclosed in variously sized and shaped bottles and plastered with labels ridged in braille. All of them had names with too many ‘Z’s and ‘E’s in them, but there were some he recognised; lithium being the easiest to spot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first he thought to pocket some of the dusty rose-pink pills, in case he would ever need to slip them into Gluskin’s food or drink. An overdose would be a kindness to that bastard, but the bottle was already running low and he feared taking too many would be noticeable. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he brushed his teeth and made his way back to his room, taking out of his bag the pistol and knife he stole from the kitchen. He balanced both on his lap, first checking the pistol for bullets and the knife for its sharpness. He practised snatching up the gun and aiming it at the custard-and-tongue coloured wallpaper, his handling rusty but the practice making him feel secure. He envisioned Gluskin’s glass eyes between the barrel, glossy and indistinct. On his hundredth try there came a kind knock at his door, and out of impulse he aimed the gun towards it, thankfully having at least some sense not to pull the trigger. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jamie?” came Gluskin’s muffled voice through the wood. “Are you awake?” his murderous host asked, followed by more soft knocking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sighing, he dropped the gun into his bag and stowed the knife away under the sheets and arranged himself neatly on the bed, taking a moment to breathe until he was sure he was ready. “It’s open,” he called out, and seconds later the handle clicked and twisted open to reveal Gluskin. Waylon brought the bedsheets further over himself, until his entire waist and chest was covered, suddenly feeling exposed. At his side, the knife lay pressed against him, the short blade of it cold against his thin shirt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not stepping inside, Gluskin loomed in the doorway, white eyes shining in the lamplight. The landing behind him was pitch black, and Waylon stifled the chill that came to him at the thought of Gluskin wondering in the darkness, just as he did during his pursuit of him in the Vocational Block.  “Sorry,” he smiled sheepishly. “I hope I wasn’t intruding.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not at all,” Waylon managed. “What’s up?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing really, I admit,” he said, that small smile still tugging at his mouth. Was he trying to be bashful? “Just wanted to make sure you were alright, and if there was anything  I could get you before I myself turn in for the night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nope, all good here, thanks,” Waylon rushed, managing a watery smile of his own, even though Gluskin could not see it. The man was staring at the headboard he was sitting against, his eyes so sparse of life it was as if two moons were casting a shadow over him, rolling slowly in their sockets. Eventually, he spoke, “Very well, I’ll leave you to it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Great, thanks,” he said bluntly, hand sneaking under his covers to claim the knife while Gluskin made his exit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, before I go, though,” said Gluskin, much to Waylon’s dismay. “There’s just one thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes?” His voice strained with the effort of seeming normal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The hand Gluskin had on the door handle tightened, and the dim glow of his eyes seemed to sharpen, like cartoon searchlights landing on a cat burglar. “Sorry for putting you on the spot like this, but you wouldn’t happen to know what happened to one of my knives, do you? It’s usually in its drawer down in the kitchen, but as I was cleaning up I couldn’t find it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A knife?” Waylon echoed, hand wrapping around the handle of the exact same blade he had hidden in bed with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” said Gluskin, still smiling. “I was just wondering if you could hand it back to me, if it’s not too much trouble. Thing is, I rather like it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon’s stomach flipped. His mind flooded with plans of escape and attack. His crutches weren’t far, and if Gluskin tried to tackle him in bed he could jam the knife in his stomach and finish what the rod in the gym failed to. It was all plausible, he could do it. This wasn’t as uneven a match as the one back in Mount Massive. They’re both disabled, but now Waylon’s the one with the knife. If he can free himself of Gluskin once, he can damn well do it again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>However long it took to think of all this, neither of them had spoken a word. Downstairs, the sound of a clock could be heard ticking. Gluskin shifted his weight from one foot to the other.“I’d hate to have to part with it, you know. A knife like that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Waylon said, clutching the handle so tight he feared his knuckles may burst, “but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were more moments, each one long, silent and painful. Gluskin then sighed, “Very well. I won’t force you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wish you had that same attitude a year ago, Waylon thought, but instead said simply, “Goodnight, Chet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin nodded, already closing the door behind him “Goodnight, darling.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was the third time now. The third time he’d been called that, that awful name. That name that is covered in blood and gore and reeks of rot. That name that has stained the inside curve of his skull for months, tumbling out the mouth of his attacker as if it were as easy and untainted as water. Before Gluskin shut the door on him entirely, he spoke out. “Why do you call me that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pardon?” said Gluskin, peering back in. “Call you what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>That</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” Gluskin frowned. “That.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin chewed his lip. “You know, I don’t really know. I suppose you just remind me of someone, that’s all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh yeah? Who?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t really remember that either.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I see,” said, too stunned to handle anything else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Gluskin nodded, though even he sounded unsure.  “Goodnight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Night,” murmured Waylon, watching the door handle turn as Gluskin closed his door. He listened to his footsteps squeak away from him, pictured his large mass moving across the landing like a cargo ship on dark water. He looked to the door for however many minutes more, until his grip on the knife loosened and he moved it under his pillow and shut off the lamp, closing his eyes but not falling asleep for another hour.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Ahh that's it!! Chapter 3 coming soon dudes &gt;:3 - lemme know if you like things so far in the comments if ya able!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Adroit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Chapter threee let's goooooo &gt;:33333</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">
    <em>
      <span>Saturday Morning</span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Throughout the night he had been phasing through memories. All happy, of course; to distract himself from the house creaking all around him, every gust of wind enough to rock the place like the cramped hull of a ship. So he buried himself in the bedsheets and tried to put himself somewhere else, landing comfortably amongst his family. Sometimes he sat with them at the dinner table, other times he was with them on the way to school, most recently he was watching them piled on top of one another on the couch, all fast asleep as the glow of cartoons playing on the TV covered them like auras. Lisa had the boys nestled into her sides, her arms wrapped around them like wings. He was about to go over and kiss their heads, when a knocking transported him away and he opened his eyes to the sight of a peeling ceiling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you up, darling?” asked a voice. </span>
  <em>
    <span>His</span>
  </em>
  <span> voice. Sickness rippled through him, making the end of his thigh sting. He pushed himself up, groggy with inaction. “Yeah, yeah,” he croaked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good,” chirped Gluskin. What gives him the right to be so chipper so early in the morning? Is it even early? He has no idea; there’s no clock around and he gave up owning anything more complex than a burner ages ago. “Ben called, he said he’d be around in an hour or so to take you to that hardware store.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine,” he replied. “Fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s toast downstairs if you want breakfast.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright. Thank-you,” he added, remembering he was still a guest and not a victim. Yet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He reached a hand under his pillow and gripped the handle of the paring knife, glad to still have it until he remembered that Gluskin also now knows that he has it. What’s to stop him from confiscating it when he’s not looking? And if he doesn’t leave it here, Gluskin will know he has it on his person, and then what? Will he carry his own knife? Pat him down at the breakfast table?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stuffed the knife back under the pillow for the time being and set about getting ready. Sat up along the side of the bed he reached for his duffel bag, finding a fresh liner and pulling it on before locking on his prosthesis. Thinking the mattress rigid enough, he threw aside the duvet and tried out a few exercises he remembered from his physical therapy at the hospital. “For strengthening the hips,” his doctor had told him, so it’ll make it less painful to walk. He was always stiff in the mornings, and after a while of moving on the bed, lying on his side and circling his prosthesis in the air, his body loosened enough to permit him to stand up. Planting both feet on the floor (real and rubber) he twisted his waist and bent his back, huffing and sighing as he grabbed some clothes and slowly set about changing himself. The air in the house was fresh and cool, goosebumps razing his skin as he pulled on his jeans and dragged a sweatshirt over his head. He found his sneakers and pulled them on as well, not fancying braving the cold floor barefoot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He picked up his pistol and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans, spending some time worrying about whether or not his sweater was baggy enough to hide it when he realised it didn’t matter. He could be wearing the thing around his neck on a chain and Gluskin wouldn’t know, wouldn’t see, wouldn’t be any the wiser until Waylon jammed the barrel under his jaw and fired.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gun tucked and digging into the small of his back, the cold metal lighting up his spine, he made his way into the bathroom and washed his face before heading down the stairs. “Chet?” he said aloud, padding down the hall. “Dining room!” came the serene reply and Waylon followed it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The dining room was anything but a space for dining. The grand table was loaded with delicate tools; scissors, needles, pencils and pages upon pages of sketchbook paper. Towards the windows there was the living room, but even that had been repurposed. The couch was pushed aside and there was no TV set in sight, most likely to make way for the surplus of vividness that polluted the room. Bolts of fabric in umbrella stands, dress forms stabbed with candy-coloured pins to keep their garments against their muslin bodies, the floors littered with mounds of tracing paper. Waylon entered the living room first, mindful of where he stepped, for fear of trampling the designs below. At the dining table sat Gluskin, eyes cast away as he wound some thread into a sewing machine or something; Waylon couldn’t decipher the exact details of what his host was doing, but either way he found it impressive. Foot dipping down and up on the pedal, his large hands moving, thread spinning, a needle diving in and out of fabric. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Thunk-a-shunk, thunk-a-shunk</span>
  </em>
  <span>, went the machine, muttering its function as Gluskin fed it more cloth, the man’s face taught with concentration. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon wondered if he pulled that same face as he stitched uniforms together to make all those dresses in the Vocational Block. He then thought of Gluskin’s needle going into flesh, alive and dead, ripping and repairing and ruining; all done with that same stormy face, firmly maiming, as if he had no choice but to do it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you sleep alright?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon shivered, shaking his head. He had become so lost he hadn’t even noticed Gluskin stopping his work. Gluskin was looking to him now, but not like how Waylon was looking to him. Waylon cleared his throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” he lied. “Thanks again. And for the soup too, from last night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s nothing,” Gluskin replied.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a pause, a gap, like how a record skips and you miss something important. Waylon soon filled it, clumsily though. “You said there was toast?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Gluskin hummed. “I left the bread out for you. There’s some butter and strawberry jam in the refrigerator. Feel free to mess with the toaster if the setting is not to your liking.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Got it,” he said. The second he moved Gluskin started the machine back up and resumed his work, the sound overshadowing all else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the kitchen, he delved into various cabinets and shelves until he found bread, only marginally disappointed to find no mutilated body parts cooling off in the refrigerator as he found the butter and jam. Afraid to meddle too much with the toaster (the device looking older than sin, the numbers on its dials covered in globs of dried glue, perhaps to signify to its user what each setting represented) he dropped a slice of bread inside and remained beside it, arms folded and expression dark. While he waited, he wondered.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Morning rush. You’re packing their lunches while she’s wiping the maple syrup off their faces. It’s the youngest’s first day and you’re terrified. He only turned five last month and still needs the crust cut off his PB&amp;J sandwiches, for Christ’s sake. You said all this to her earlier in bed. “It’s only natural,” she had said while she buttoned her blouse, but you don’t know if she was talking about him or you. Now, watching your son fork mouthfuls of pancake, in his favourite Transformers shirt (a thinly veiled bribe, to convince him to be agreeable on his big day) your heart has never felt so swollen. It was just as bad when it was time for the oldest to go. The two of them now, your little prides, chugging bright cups of orange juice and trying to wriggle out of their mother’s fussing. “Do they have to get the bus?” you ask her when she returns to the kitchen. “Wouldn’t it be safer to drive them on their first day?” She just smiled, kissed your cheek. “They’ll be fine,” she said, grabbing the bags of sandwiches you had made and heading out towards the hallway. “Alright! Let’s roll!” The boys rush out their seats, dragging their bags behind them, their empty plates of syrup left glistening at the table like sticky mirrors.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Darling?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shit,” he hissed, the smell of smoke suddenly hitting him. He wafted a hand over the toaster, popping out the singed block of bread inside and dropping it into the trash can nearby. “Sorry, sorry,” he babbled, looking over his shoulder to his host. Gluskin was leaning in the doorway, scarred eyebrows raised. “Sorry,” he muttered again, head tilting back down to the toaster. All of the smoke (not that there was much to begin with, but still) had evaporated by now, though the smell of burnt toast remained. He braced his hands on the counter, shaking his head. “Sorry about that. I must have gone someplace else . . .”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s perfectly alright, darling,” Gluskin breezed, gliding to his side and putting another slice of bread into the toaster. “This thing is temperamental at the best of times, I should have better warned you. Please, go sit, I’ll take it from here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon, too embarrassed to argue, did as he was told. He dragged out the same chair he sat in before last night and held his head in his hands. The gun tucked into his waistband jostled slightly and he ignored it, hunger and shame overtaking his lust for vengeance for the time being.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Any plans for the day?” said Gluskin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Aside from getting the coolant for my car with Ben, not much,” he sighed, rubbing his eyes. “What about you? Quite the operation you got going on back there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, yes. Quite,” Gluskin agreed, pride haunting the edges of his voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s very impressive. No offence, but I never knew you would be able to  . . . do all that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m blind, darling, not brainless.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, no, I know!” he hurried. He felt stupid, not for potentially offending Gluskin but for feeling the need to be apologetic toward him. The guy had killed platoons of souls unlucky enough to stumble into his lair, and here Waylon was, fretting over burnt toast and little offences. The gun at his back was already starting to warm up again. “I’m just, you know, curious.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know. Forgive me, I was only teasing,” said Gluskin, looking over his shoulder. Waylon swore the man’s eyes sparkled, like cold stars. “In reality, there’s not much to it. I’ve always enjoyed sewing, only now I have to do so blindly. Granted, it makes fabric choices difficult, but I just let my clients choose the material. I tend to judge on texture, instead, warning them whether or not a material is appropriate for what they’re requesting. After that, it’s just a matter of making a pattern and knowing where to cut. Patterns are easy enough to come by, some I’ve used so often I don’t even need to trace any more. Muscle memory, I suppose is what you’d call it. The machine takes care of the rest.” The toast then popped and Gluskin slid it onto a plate, placing it onto the table for Waylon to take. Waylon nudged the plate closer to himself, taking a butterknife and adorning it with thick swathes of butter and jam. As he ate, Gluskin stayed on his feet, resting against the counter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out, then,” Waylon later said, crumbs cornering his mouth and sweet jam staining his teeth. He spoke with neither malice or kindness, only a grey kind of intrigue. Most of all, he was spiteful, despising the way in which it seemed Gluskin’s life had, more or less, quietly rearranged itself into something that could be taken for peace. Envy came to him, bubbling in the pit of his stomach, murky green and gelatinous. The gun tucked against his back was thrumming now, like a metal organ. He longed to take it, longed to shoot holes in the floorboards, in Gluskin’s face, wanted to rip out the icy marbles in his eye sockets and send them skittering out the door like dice. The anger in him was so intense it was horrifying, it was burning him from the inside-out; the hot spite making it hard for him to swallow his toast.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, I don't know about all that,” said Gluskin, drawing him out of his red thoughts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No?” he replied, wiping his hands clean of crumbs on his jeans under the table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin shook his head. “If it weren’t for what little business that comes my way, I doubt I’d do much of anything else. And even then, my business is built on the guilt and sympathy of others.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He furrowed his brow, the spite in him churning. “What do you mean?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean that they only employ my services because they think it makes them more moral. I suppose they fancy themselves somehow ‘superior’ because they have their frocks made by a cripple.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure. Guess that’s one way of looking at it,” he reasoned, leaning back in his seat. The gun dug into his spine, sparking uncomfort. “Is that how you know everyone then? Through work?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I only know everyone’s wives, and even then it’s strictly from a business perspective. Ben delivers me my groceries and prescriptions and collects Mirmiam’s orders on occasion, but apart from that we never interact much beyond common courtesy. I don’t think many of the men around here enjoy me, truth be told. Not like I can exactly float down to the bar whenever I want and drink with them, and not that I’d want to either. No, apart from Ben and Ned, I know very few people intimately.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ned?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Local barber,” Gluskin supplied. “Ever since I lost my eyes, I don’t trust myself with a razor. Ned comes round once a month or so to help. I don’t particularly enjoy it, more often than not it’s a painful reminder of what’s become of me. Ned himself is nice enough, though I admit he is terrible with small-talk. Keeps bringing up the weather, like I can see it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon was quiet for a while, all that white-hot anger from before slowly evaporating the more he learnt of Gluskin’s life. The truth was, he realised, is that though Gluskin lives a peaceful life, it’s only peaceful because nothing disturbs it. Images came to him then, of a man sat alone at a table, eating in solitude, stitching dresses in the dark, lying alone in the middle of his bed. He could die at any point, and it’d take weeks for anyone to even notice. A blind ghost in a grey house on a hill surrounded by nothing but grass and wind. He cleared his throat. “Still,” he tried, “it’s nice that you can count on people for that kind of thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t sing Ned’s praises quite so readily, darling,” huffed Gluskin. “He’s out of town at the moment, leaving me to grow feral for another month.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon raised an eyebrow, unsure if Gluskin was being serious or not. Aside from the slight tint of stubble on his jaw and a modest amount of overgrowth in his hair, he looked the same as he did when he was banging on the glass and screaming for mercy down at the Morphogenic Engine Room. Suddenly, without thought or reason guiding him, he then decided to say, “I could help, if you want.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin blinked, now his turn to be confused. “I’m sorry, darling? Help with what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon waved a hand, gesturing uselessly to him. “Y’know. Shaving. Granted, I’m probably not as good as this Ned guy, but I can . . . I can help. If you’d like.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin blinked again. “Help . . .” he repeated, but said it as though Waylon wasn’t there, as though it was a word he had long since forgotten and was struggling to remember. It tumbled dumbly out of his thin mouth and fell to the floor like a lump of coal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon waved his hand again, this time dismissively, as if he could fan his offer away like smoke. “Forget about it. You probably prefer your own way of doing things. I shouldn’t have overstepped like tha—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stopped. “Come again?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His host, the ex-maniac (though aside from the pills he found in his cabinet, he has no clear idea if he ever resigned his insanity), smiled.  It was a strange thing, nothing like the grin that chased him in the Vocational Block. This thing seemed almost genuine, if wildly stiff. It was the smile of someone who is out of the practice of smiling. Nevertheless, it was gentle, soft. Almost endearing. “You said, if I would like you to, you would help me. I think I would like that very much.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon nodded. “Right,” he choked, his throat stuck with an emotion he couldn’t yet identify. Not spite. “Good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Provided it’s not too much trouble.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, no. No trouble. No trouble at all,” he covered, flashing his own torn smile. “I’d be happy to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin’s small smile remained. “Well then, I’d be only too happy to accept.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At that moment, there came a distant rumbling; a car. At the sound, Gluskin deflated, his smile disappearing as he turned his head to the noise. “That’s Ben,” he mumbled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cool,” said Waylon, getting up from his seat, bracing a hand on his back to keep the gun from falling out of his jeans. “I’ll be out in a second, there’s just something I forgot in my room.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Darling—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Quaintly, Gluskin reached over the counter to tear a piece of paper towel from a dispenser, holding it out for him to take. “Just because I can’t see you doesn’t mean you magically avoided making a mess of yourself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right. Thanks,” he replied, taking the paper towel and patting the jam, butter and crumbs clean off his mouth. Beneath the cheap paper he stifled a smile, not knowing what to do with the warmth he suddenly felt melting the ice in his ribs. For fear of what he might next say if he stayed any longer, he moved out towards the stairs, stuffing the paper towel in his pocket and entering his room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Reaching around under his sweatshirt, he claimed the handle of his gun, held the weapon before him for a few moments, before promptly dropping it into his duffel bag and kicking it under the bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He then headed back downstairs, passing the dining room as he went. In the doorway he called to Gluskin, who was back before his beloved sewing machine. “Be back soon,” he said over the machine’s racket.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I would hope so,” Gluskin called back, not looking up from his work, his words light but his face back under that dark shroud of concentration. Waylon smiled again, not bothering to refrain from it this time around, and left. He greeted Ben, who waited beside his truck, and the two of them climbed inside and drove away. In the side-view mirror, Waylon caught sight of Gluskin’s grey house, skeletal and lonesome. He didn’t know what to make of the ache in his heart at the sight of it, or of the pain he felt for the man inside. He tried to shove the feeling aside, tried to replace it with memories of ripped corpses and gym floors gummed with blood, but only thoughts of Gluskin’s small smile remained, and how the sight of it didn’t terrify Waylon but instead comforted him; and that’s the most damning part of this whole morning.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Big thanks to everyone that's liked and commented so far!!! your enjoyment and feedback has been such a help &lt;3<br/>if you've got anything to say about the story so far feel free to leave a comment!!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Aorta</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So uh, this was meant to go up Christmas day but like,,,, life happened so that flopped lmao. Sorry for the wait but I hope y'all enjoy the new chapter!!! now with extra emotional anguish &gt;:3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">
    <em>
      <span>Saturday Afternoon</span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So how’d you lose it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ben avoided his eyes, continuing instead to look out onto the road, the truck’s engine chugging as it hauled the rest of the vehicle up the hill to Gluskin’s house. “The leg,” Ben clarified. “How’d you lose it? Afghanistan? Iraq?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh.” Waylon down to his lap, the paper bag of coolant resting upon it. Beneath the bag were his legs, metal and bone, his fake knee locked into place whilst he was sat down. “I’m not a vet, if that’s what you mean.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right, right,” nodded the local. “So then what? Not that’s it my place to ask, I know, but you can’t blame a man for bein’ just a tiny bit curious.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re right,” Waylon said, looking out beside his window, watching the earth gradually steepen the higher they climbed. “It’s not your place to ask.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They continued on in rigid silence for the rest of the brief trip, the only other words said between them for the day were Waylon’s “Thanks for the ride,” and Ben’s “No problem. See you Monday.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He waved Ben’s truck off, only waiting until the vehicle was halfway down the hill before turning towards the front porch. The wind was the fiercest it’s been yet, the wintery evening rolling fast over what was left of the afternoon light. All day he had been cold and bitter, mainly standing beside Ben as he looked back over his car’s gasket and poured some of the coolant over the engine as they took it for a test drive. Now he has only tonight and Sunday to waste before they journey to Mac’s (the town mechanic) and he can leave this mess all behind. Thirty-two hours and change; well beyond the realm of manageable. Then he can cross this place off his map and leave Gluskin to rot in his house in the middle of a wasteland. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He made his way onto the front porch and knocked on the door, the door snapping open seconds later to reveal Gluskin, aproned and askew. Strands of unruly black hair fell over his brow and the slightest hue of red affected his cheeks. “Jamie. You’re back early,” his host breathed. Had he run to the door?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wasn’t aware I was expected at a certain time,” he replied, shivering on the porch steps. “Can I still come in? Not to be dramatic but I’m freezing my ass off out here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, right, of course. Get in before you catch something,” his host stepped aside, ushering him in. The moment he made it into the hallway he was hit with the smell of food. No, not only food: cooking. The distinct warm scent of effort and time filled his lungs, reminding him of how his house would smell when it was Lisa’s turn to cook dinner, saving him and the boys from another round of lukewarm microwave meals. “It smells good in here. What’re you making?” he asked,  trailing behind Gluskin as they shuffled towards the kitchen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, well, I thought I’d make good of what Ben brought yesterday,” said his host. Waylon watched the ribbon of his apron hang at his back as they walked, the fabric tied into a pretty fat bow, so deliriously twee against the pale shirt Gluskin wore and the thick muscle underneath. “You’re fine to eat lasagna, I hope? I’m preparing some garlic bread to go with it, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The smell and thought of food soon roused the attention of his stomach, and amongst the abnormal warmth and sweetness of the house he found himself smiling. “Sounds great. You need a hand with anything?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think I’ll be fine. Allow me another hour or so for the bread to rise and I’ll call you when it’s done.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you sure? This’ll be the third time in a row where I’m taking food from you and doing nothing in return.” Perhaps he should be warier, more cautious of the man he’s currently accepting food and housing from. Regardless, he certainly shouldn’t be offering help to the man that traumatised him all those months ago. And yet he can’t help it. Gluskin, unfortunately, has given him no reason to hate him aside from their history together, and even then that history is heavily scrambled on both sides due to the effects of the Engine. In such a short amount of time, it has become all the more difficult to align the Groom with the person before him, with flour dusting his rough hands and a warm glow in his healed skin, and a smile that made every worry Waylon possessed melt away like butter thrown into a hot pan. It makes little sense, so little that he can’t even begin to explain why, but this is the most comfortable he’s felt in months, and it’s as he’s amongst Eddie Fucking Gluskin, of all people. He thought of the fables he absorbed as a kid, of scorpions on the backs of frogs and mice in the dens of lions; examples of ill-placed trust and the fact that he, of all people, should know better. He should. And he does. And </span>
  <em>
    <span>yet</span>
  </em>
  <span> . . .</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I feel wrong to let you do all this by yourself,” he persisted. “Let me repay you, yeah? If not for your sake then for my own peace of mind. I’m not much of a cook, but I can at least dedicate myself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well,” said Gluskin, eyes flickering. “If you insist, you can always help make the garlic glaze for the bread once it’s risen. That won’t be necessary until later on, however.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Got it. I’ll shower in the meantime.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin grinned. “An excellent plan, darling,” he beamed, already turning to the counter to continue his preparations. “See you in an hour, darling.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon nodded, Gluskin’s back already to him but it didn’t matter. As he headed out of the kitchen he returned the sentiment, calling out, “See you, Eddie.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ice. The warmth he felt only moments ago froze once more, the shock of his mistake, a mere two syllables in a three-word sentence, cold enough to kill him if it weren’t for his heart beating its way up his throat. His whole soul seemed to freeze over, his body so numb he barely registered much more than his legs carrying him up the stairs and his hand gripping the bannister. Behind him he heard Gluskin, weak and chilling. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Darling?” came his host’s voice from the kitchen. “Jamie?” he heard as well, but he was already on the landing, barrelling into the shower and twisting the water on to cover the sound of his ragged breathing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <em>
      <span>Saturday Evening</span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>An hour passed. He felt it go by like a toothache, each second stinging then receding then returning once more. He had sat on his bed and watched the landing through a slip in his door he kept propped open by his prosthesis; the rubber foot holding it ajar. His ears were sharp, paying painful attention to any noise beyond his room. Mainly he was waiting for Gluskin to call him down to dinner. No such sound came, only the occasional clanking and bustling from his host roaming his kitchen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, he summed up the courage to strap on his crutches and venture outside, kicking back his prosthesis and rocking himself towards the kitchen. The steps groaned under the weight of him, the entire structure complaining of his arrival, making him feel even more out of place. Any attempt at subtlety was wasted on the steps, and he swapped grace for dim prowess as he swung into the kitchen and stopped entirely in the doorway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin was sitting in his usual chair, leaning over to Waylon’s seat and adjusting the positions of his plate and cutlery. The lighting, always somewhat dingy, was now aglow with heady lamplight. Covering the marked wood of the tabletop was a white tablecloth, if it could really be called that. If anything it looked like it came from one of the bolts Gluskin keeps in his living room, the fabric frayed at one edge from where it had been ripped from the reel. Confounded, Waylon merely stamped one of his crutches and Gluskin lifted his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Silence. Nothing new in their case, but still not any easier to deal with than the previous times. Waylon considered the ways this moment could do, a large amount of them horrific and dubious. But he let the soft lighting subdue him, and instead decided to say, “You were supposed to call me down to help.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin’s shape tremored, as if a great layer of tension had just flown clean off from him. “Sorry. I forgot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shook his head, moving to his seat. “Don’t sweat it. You can make up for it by letting me do the dishes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin nodded, hands in his lap and his gaze cast aside as Waylon sat himself down. Once he was settled, his host then asked (quite kindly), “The dishes are all yours. The dishes and . . . your offer from this morning?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ah. Waylon had forgotten all about that, his mind so swamped with fear of discovery that he had completely dropped his offer to help Gluskin shave. He turned to his host, who was looking blankly down at his plate, the orange lighting turning his eyes a watery gold, like stars reflected into a lake. Outside the house he heard the beginnings of rain, the soft noise like fingertips pattering on the old wood of the house. Quietly, Waylon placed a hand on Gluskin’s wrist and his host lifted his head, watching the air around him nervously. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And my offer, yes,” Waylon confirmed. Gluskin nodded. The two of them shared a smile, though only Waylon was aware of both smiles, and as he took his hand off Gluskin's wrist  he felt an ache in his fingers, an ache that overpowered the usual soreness in his half-limb whenever the weather turned. It was an ache, he realised, for touch. And as he ate and gently conversed with Gluskin, he found himself wondering what it would be like to hold more of his host. He imagined it would feel like coming home; or leaving.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Saturday Night</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Dinner finished and the dishes washed, they slowly made their way up to the bathroom. Gluskin supplied shaving foam whilst Waylon found a razor from his bag. Some fussing later they were positioned in the bathroom at angles more or less suitable for the task at hand: Gluskin sat on the edge of the bathtub, hunched over with his head bowed and his arms leant on his thighs, whilst Waylon sat himself down on the closed lid of the toilet seat and dragged the razor over his ex-assailant’s head, freshening his undercut and occasionally leaning back to wash the razor in the sink behind them. It quickly became ritualistic for the two of them, the motion and the rain outside calming them until only the rasp of a razor on skin and breathing could be heard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the time Gluskin’s hair was back to its former glory, a sense of ease had snugly overcome them, pulling their shoulders and eyelids gently down. “Face next,” Waylon hummed, turning over to wash his razor while Gluskin towelled off the remaining foam and water from his hair. When he turned back around, he was alarmed to see how much Gluskin looked like the version of himself that had stalked his lair in Mount Massive, minus the excessive pus and blood. In the grey blinking lighting of the bathroom, the scars and lines of his host’s face transported him, dropped him back in that filthy basement, scattering over glass and rubble.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Darling,” said Gluskin, handing him the can of shaving gel. Waylon took it, compressing the lid until some pooled into his hands and he worked the small dose into a white froth. With his cleanest finger, he hooked Gluskin’s chin and lifted his face up, the hoary worlds of his eyes cast up towards the ceiling. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Delicately, like applying oil paint to a canvas, he began to cover Gluskin’s hardy features with the foam, layering it over the faint stubble along his jaw and neck, a slice above his lips, across his chin. Occasionally his knuckle would graze a scar, a reminder of the damage dealt to the ex-patient, telling Waylon he wasn’t the only one harmed by what went down in the asylum. As his thumb touched a particularly thick scar that wrapped around a corner of Gluskin’s mouth, the man flinched. “Sorry,” Waylon muttered, though his thumb remained, pressing over the bump of skin for another second before moving along, ignoring the sight of Gluskin licking his lips soon after.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rightly prepared, Waylon raised the razor to his face and dragged it in a stripe over his ex-assailants jaw, cupping his cheek in the other hand to move him accordingly. He tried not to pay attention to the way Gluskin’s cheek, sharp and glacial, fitted perfectly into his palm. The man practically melted into his hand, dull eyes fluttering shut. Waylon shook his head, instead focusing on the path of his razor, his mind wandering into darker corners as he worked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t entirely lost on him, the notion that if he pressed the blade hard enough he could drain Gluskin’s throat and leave him twitching and gasping in the bathtub. He’d draw the shower curtain over him, wash by the sink and go to sleep. Then, in the morning, he’d bury him in the garden out back, clean the bathroom and wait around until Monday morning, where Ben will take him to the mechanic, fix his damn gasket and he’ll be back out on the road. It may take them days to realise what happened, weeks even, if Gluskin’s talk of isolation is to be believed. And then what? They’d never find him; his name isn’t even his own. He pays for everything in cash and never left a phone number of any kind. There’d be his number plate, of course, but he can easily ditch his car for another once he reaches Tulsa.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s easy. So deliciously simple; a quick flash of the razor and he’d have his revenge, his closure. Maybe this was what all the travelling had been leading up to. Maybe there was an endpoint after all, and it lied in the pulse in Gluskin’s throat. He could slay the monster, for real this time, and he could return home, a real home, to his wife and kids and hug and love them properly without dissolving into a mess of history and blood, so much blood, on the walls and floor and on him, a voice behind him screaming “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Whore!</span>
  </em>
  <span>”—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jamie!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two heavy hands clamped down on his shoulders, digging into his sweatshirt and skin below. He gasped, dropping the razor. The hands on his shoulders ventured North, cupping his face, holding him like something nice. His eyes rolled around before landing on Gluskin’s, the two of them not just looking </span>
  <em>
    <span>at</span>
  </em>
  <span> one another but </span>
  <em>
    <span>into</span>
  </em>
  <span> one another. Deep brown in swirling grey, the fog of Gluskin’s eyes seeming to pour out and swarm him, sheltering him. He looked briefly at Gluskin’s neck, noticing a small trickle of red trickling down his throat. “You’re bleeding,” he mumbled, mouth barely moving enough to make the words as he reached out towards the cut. He dipped his fingers in the blood, making Gluskin hiss. “Darling,” he implored, drawing Waylon back to him,  hands dropping to his lap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They both hung in the moment, held up by each other’s breath and silence. Gluskin’s hands on his face were rough and encompassing, still until they weren’t. Slowly, Gluskin began to map out the contours of Waylon’s face, brushing his thumbs over his cheeks, trailing a finger down the slope of his nose and tracing the curve of his eyelids. Throughout it all, Waylon did nothing but blink and breathe, too overwhelmed to do much else. His thigh ached faintly,  desperately trying to make him remember who he was and who he was with. His whole body was sluggish with whatever spell Gluskin’s hands had over him. By the end of it, it was hard to tell if Gluskin was bringing their faces closer together or if Waylon was drawing closer on his own accord.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inches. That’s how close they were, perhaps even less. His eyes dropped down to Gluskin’s mouth, thin and chapped but still oddly inviting. Their breath mingled, the air tasting of each other. Gently, like a prayer, Gluskin whispered, “We've met before haven't we? I know I've seen your face.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He jolted as though the words were knives and each syllable dug its way into his skin. He didn’t know what he wanted more; to die or kill. Either way, he couldn’t go on. The atmosphere record-scratched to a halt and he tried to lean back, eyes searching the bathroom blindly for his crutches. He found them propped up next to the sink, within arm’s reach, if only he could— </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait!” Gluskin cried, hands dropping his face and travelling elsewhere; one on his arm, the other over the warped end of his thigh, snaking under the leg of his shorts to hold him down. He felt as though he might burst into flames, his skin ready to break into a force of blood the longer Gluskin’s kept his hands on him. He shook his head, eyes wound shut and whole body pounding.  Wake up, he pleaded inside his skull, afraid that if he opened his mouth he’d just start screaming. Wake up, damnit, damn you, damn this. Think of somewhere else, put yourself away. Shut it all down, and quickly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please,” his possessor said, beggingly. Waylon eventually stilled, eyes still fastened shut. The hand on the end of his thigh was weighing him down, like cement, like a curse. The hand on his arm crept up to his neck, holding him with such terrifying softness. He then felt himself be pulled, like before only now with much more resistance on his end. Nevertheless, worried Gluskin would snap him over his lap like a dry twig if he disobeyed, he let it happen, letting himself be pulled until he felt a warmth pressed against his forehead and his eyes unlocked and flicked open.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Foreheads touching, the two of them looked into each other’s blurry visages, their skin hot but the air cold. Gluskin still had foam on parts of his jaw, the minty artificial smell of it overwhelming but grounding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s your name?” Gluskin asked him after some time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“James Reid,” Waylon told him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” said Gluskin. “I mean your real name, darling.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop calling me that,” he said, perhaps even pleaded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry. I can’t help it.” The hand his host had on his thigh roamed for a moment. “You’re just so familiar. I remember your skin. You had such soft skin.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because you shaved me whilst I was knocked out,” he seethed. Then, venomously, “I have a gun, you know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will you use it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Depends.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“On what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“On whether or not you get your hands off me in the next five seconds.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In an instant he was released and grabbed his crutches, lifting himself up. In two strides he made it to the door and opened it, the only thing delaying his exit being the words said behind him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you have a gun, does that mean I can have my knife back?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turned his head over, looking down at Gluskin, still sat with a towel around his neck and foam along his face, his eyes slanted to the floor, misty and wet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Waylon said, twisting the door handle and leaving, the rain outside hammering on the house heavier than ever before. It sounded like applause.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>dun dun dunnnn - things somehow got even more heavier lol. Hope ya liked everything and if u wanna leave a comment/like feel free to do so!! love ya either way &lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Acrid</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hey everybody!! this chapter was originally gonna be included in the previous one but for the sake of brevity and pacing I figured it deserved its own spotlight &lt;:0 Enjoy!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">
    <em>
      <span>Sunday Evening</span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had not left his room all day, his body as a result too stiff to do much more than shuffle to the bathroom once every few hours. The rain had continued on from last night, making any space that wasn’t trapped under his bedsheets too cold to brace. His thigh, the leftovers of it at least, hadn’t stopped protesting since the situation in the bathroom with Gluskin, the slightest shift sending it into a flurry of complaints; some of them in places no longer even connected to him. He had managed to snatch some painkillers from the medicine cabinet during one of his breaks, downing them dry before collapsing back into bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Consciousness came and went, carrying him off like a large wave before returning him full-force to the rough shore of reality. For now, though, he was far off and comfortable, lost in some pleasant dream.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It’s Sunday and you’re both off work, the boys still at that sleepover you dropped them off to yesterday. You’re both in bed, the hour not early but early enough by lazy-Sunday standards. It’s raining, surprisingly. It hardly ever rains in California, even in Winter. It’s not proper rain, mind you, only a light shower that’ll be gone by lunchtime. Your bedroom window is open by just a few inches, but it’s all that’s needed for the room to fill with the smell of wet air. She holds you closer, wriggling against your back, trying to leech off from your body warmth. She throws a leg over your waist and you rest your hand over her, rubbing her thigh, your wedding ring gliding over her skin. “Morning,” she sighs against your neck, tickling your ear. “Hey,” you reply. You feel her hand sneak under your arm and wind over your front, her fingers swirling over your bare chest. “What time is it?” she asks, pressing kisses to the nape of your neck, dotting you with affection like raindrops. “No clue,” you report, the hand you have on her leg moving along, creeping under the short skirt of her nightgown. She hums. “In that case, while we have the chance . . .” she says, the hand she has on your chest trailing down and that’s your sign. You turn over and meet her lovely face and the two of you make the most of what little time you have left, before Mrs. Frahm calls and begs you to take the boys home from the sleepover.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Then there came a knocking, rising him above the summit of bedsheets to watch the door groggily. Soon enough he heard a familiar voice, much to his dismay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know you haven’t eaten anything today,” said Gluskin. Waylon said nothing. “What about something to drink? You haven’t even come down for a glass of water.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He continued his silence. More knocking came, followed by the distinct whine of “Darling—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Forget it,” he snapped. “I’m not eating anything you make for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright . . . then how about something </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> made by me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” he frowned, then hearing the sound of something being slipped under the door. Curious, he begrudgingly sat up, looking down at the floor before his bed to see a mass of multi-coloured paper, some envelopes and others just junk mail. One, in particular, being the jade-green paper of a takeout menu.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t tell what’s what, but there should be a menu for that Chinese place downtown somewhere in there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh-huh.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Read out what you want and I’ll order it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He considered shoving the papers back under the door and telling Gluskin to fuck off, but then his stomach, no longer distracted with dreams, began to rumble with such intensity he dolefully realised that he couldn’t survive on pride alone. “Sure,” he said, carefully pulling himself along the bed until he could lean over the edge and snatch up the menu. The strain made his thigh riot, but he ignored it, his hunger taking over matters. “You still there?” he asked the door once he was done scanning the menu.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Gluskin replied. “Found anything to your liking?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. You got a pen to write all this down?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I gave up writing when I found that I couldn’t see my own hands, darling. My memory is fine enough.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he mumbled, feeling his ears heat up. “Sorry. You ready?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ready.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He read off his order twice. “You got all that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good. One more thing, are you paying for all this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought that was a given.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he scoffed, leaning over to his bedside drawer and rifling through his wallet. “Come in here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you decent?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>‘Are you decent?’ asks the madman that once stripped and shaved him before tying him against a table saw with the intention of impregnating him. If he had more energy he’d laugh, but he was too hungry to pick any fights for now. “Yeah, I’m decent,” he sighed, his host stepping in and coming to his bedside, his fingertips occasionally touching the bed, most likely to ensure he was on the right path. Waylon grabbed some notes from his wallet and piled them into his hand, closing his fingers around the money. “I’m not having you pay for me either,” he said. Gluskin’s mouth opened for a moment, before the man thought better and simply nodded, moving away and out of the room without a word. Waylon watched the door for a while, before nestling back down to rest, not wanting to consider what just happened.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The food arrived an hour later, greasy and relatively warm. Gluskin brought it all to him on a tray, at first asking if he would prefer to leave the bed and eat at a table, to which Waylon replied, “Everything below my waist is tired and painful, and the same goes for what’s above it too. I’m fine right here, thank-you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin just hummed and lowered the tray onto his drawer, the assortment of boxes complete with cutlery and a tall glass of water. “I’ll leave you to it,” his host said, turning to leave before Waylon stopped him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where are you going?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin looked over, brows knitted. He had small knicks all across his jaw, most likely a result of him attempting to finish shaving after Waylon had escaped the bathroom last night. “I was under the impression you didn’t want my company.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I said I didn’t want you making or paying for my food. Go bring your own food up, we’ll eat here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve already eaten.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? Didn’t you order anything for yourself?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin pulled a face. “That would have been awfully rude of me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon sighed. “Nevermind. Just sit on the bed, you can have some of mine.” He patted the bed, punctuating his statement. As he opened the takeout containers he felt the mattress dip, Gluskin positioning himself cross-legged on the furthest edge of the bed. “Closer,” he encouraged, watching Gluskin’s mass shift nearer, until they were within touching distance; Waylon resting against the headboard, Gluskin in the bed’s nest-like centre. The bed seemed so much smaller with Gluskin’s bulk occupying well over half of it, even as they both sat with their legs folded, as though they were far younger and sitting on a picnic blanket in some sunny spot in the country. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He reached out and tapped his host’s arm, handing him a carton of orange chicken along with a fork, while he resorted to using the cheap takeout chopsticks to pick through his own food. They ate in silence, the rain raging beyond the closed curtains and thin glass window. Gluskin only ate half of his carton, later offering the rest to Waylon. “Thank you for that, I’ve never tried their stuff before.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You ever eat in town?” asked Waylon once he swallowed an egg roll.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I prefer to make things for myself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah but . . . surely there are times where you’d prefer to have someone else cook for you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think, if anything, it’d be more stressful for me to head into town alone. I can’t even read a menu. I’m far better here, believe me.” He said all this with a sad half-smile, mouth curved partly down like a setting sun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only because you’re alone,” Waylon said. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin’s mouth twitched. “I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>independent</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I never said you weren’t. I’m just saying you can still be independent and have someone around to help. You can’t do it all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But what I do is good enough for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright,” Waylon mumbled, returning to his food. He thought that was the end of it, until Gluskin spoke again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you often find yourself desiring help, then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not always help. Sometimes just company,” he admitted. “Someone to make the roads a little less lonesome.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought you said you value your individuality?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m an individual that occasionally wants to be around other individuals. It’s a basic trait in humans. If I never wanted help, then I wouldn’t have my prosthetic or crutches. Sometimes the things that support you can make you all the more free. Lighten the load, you know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then what are you asking for?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin tilted his head. “I’m confused. What exactly do you desire? Support or company?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can’t company </span>
  <em>
    <span>be</span>
  </em>
  <span> supportive?” he proposed mid-chew.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not for me. I don’t take to the idea of someone in my space, thinking they’re making things easier when in reality they’re just in the way.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin frowned. “You don’t get in the way. In fact, you’re never around long enough </span>
  <em>
    <span>to be </span>
  </em>
  <span>in the way.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do I make things easier, then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His host paused. “Sometimes. You have a knack for only going half the distance with things.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like the dishes,” smirked Gluskin. “Last night you left one plate and two knives unwashed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Liar. I cleaned them!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not with soap, though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I ran out of the stuff you gave me midway.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I keep spares. Besides, you could have always asked for </span>
  <em>
    <span>help</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon rolled his eyes. “I’m not counting that as an example. Try something else.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright. What about last night in the bathroom? You left that unfinished  too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon shot him a look. “Because you distracted me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that what happened?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In the politest way I can put it, yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And the most insulting way?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That you tried to ambush me,” he told him, putting down his empty container onto the tray and folding his arms over his chest. “You’re lucky all I did was leave.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I apologise for ambushing you, it wasn’t my intention. Things just sort of, slipped out in the moment,” Gluskin confessed, head ducking down like that of a guilty dog. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you even remember what you said?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes. You should know, I only said what I felt right to say at the time. Though, I’m realising now that what I thought right then isn’t right now, if ever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Damn straight.” He sank against the headboard, between the mass of frilly pillows that flanked him like soft mountains. “Do you even understand it, though? What you said?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His host shrugged. “All I know is that it felt, at the time, right. I meant what I said, you </span>
  <em>
    <span>are</span>
  </em>
  <span> familiar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How so?” Waylon dared.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like you’re from a vision. I can’t tell if you’re from my past or future. Either way, you’re bad news.” Waylon saw him bite his lip before saying, “It seems like a dream now, being here with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop it,” he warned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why? It’s the truth,” Gluskin pursued, leaning over the bed, coming closer to him. Too close. His broad hands swept the bedsheets, making sure nothing blocked his approach. “Nothing you say makes sense to me, and yet it all still sounds like truth. Especially when you breathe, it’s like something from a memory that I can’t place.” He was impossibly close now, his knees brushing Waylon’s leg, their faces as close as they were back in the bathroom. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Chet . . .” Waylon tried, the air too thin to waste on speaking and yet he still persisted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” said Gluskin, his eyes so bright despite the gloom around them. “Don’t lie to me in that way. You know me, say it. Tell me who I am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Eddie,” he conceded. It did little to steer Gluskin away, the man’s eyes instead shining only brighter, pinning him like headlights. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“See?” the murderer said. “You know me, and I might know you, if you’d only just </span>
  <em>
    <span>let me</span>
  </em>
  <span>—” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Waylon defied, but Gluskin only continued, taking his hands in his.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t you understand?” begged the maniac. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>There’s something special about you</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If a rat gets its foot caught in a trap, it’ll chew through the bone to free itself. Waylon was already down one foot, but he had ulterior ways of freeing himself. His hand wound its way under the mass of pillows, wrapping around the knife handle below and flung his arm blade-first.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin, however, be it through hearing or some unearthly sixth sense the Engine doomed him with, grabbed his arm before the blade ever graced him, the two of them struggling in fierce silence for a while before Gluskin snatched his wrist and forced the knife out of his grasp, sending it clattering off the mattress and to the floorboards below.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Panicking, Waylon resorted to the gun he kept tucked in his duffel bag beneath the bed, but he put too much force into trying to flee Gluskin’s reach, and in turn fell to the floor as well, narrowly missing the knife but landing painfully on his residual thigh, the feeling so sudden his vision cut to white as he clung to the limb and screamed. As his voice broke, he heard Gluskin leave the bed, lowering himself to the floor with him. “Oh god,” Waylon heard him say. “Oh god, are you okay? Tell me you're okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His vision cleared just enough to see Gluskin’s arms reach out for him, and try as he might to scramble across the floor, more pain only continued to shoot its way up and around him, from the end of his thigh to the end of his spine, choking him. “Get away from me!” he howled, lying on the floor, too far gone to do much else. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Darling,” Gluskin pleaded. “Darling, please. Are you bleeding?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get away . . .”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You need to let me check if you won’t tell me. I need to know. The nearest hospital is hours away and I need to know if I should call Ben.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get . . .” he began to say, before something in his body gave way; not a limb or muscle, but a feeling. All the spite that had sat coiled over him, in the marrow of his bones and the valves of his heart, it soon turned to steam and left him through one big surrendering exhale. This time, he realised, there would be no escape. But there might be some hope of saving. Tears brimming in his eyes he felt his leg, the whole of it sore but not wet with any blood. Thank fuck. “There’s no blood,” he described.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you sure?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Check for yourself if you don’t believe me,” he sneered, the effort of being angry practically winding. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m afraid I must.” He then felt Gluskin’s heavy palms cradle his leg, his ginger touches skittering away if he so much as winced, before returning to check him with even more unbelievable softness. Eventually, he retracted. “You’re right. No blood.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Told you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can never be too careful. Can you sit up?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He rolled a shoulder and nearly bit his tongue into two from the pain. “Not without help.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He heard the floorboards creak, and then a dark shape in Gluskin’s particular outline hung over him. Next thing he knew, Gluskin’s arms were weedling their way under him and he was being hauled bridal-style back into bed, the notion and action equally horrific, but before he could even shout about it Gluskin was already pulling the covers back over him, tucking him in. He half expected the man to kiss his forehead. He didn’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Better?” the man asked, hovering at his bedside like an omen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Marginally.” He tried to push his hips out, testing the strength of his lower-half before dropping them back down as fresh pain stabbed its way across his pelvis. “It’s what I get for not exercising this morning.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is there any way to ease the pain?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Painkillers and rest. If you look under the bed there’s my bag. Inside, there should be a small tub of ointment.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin bent down, spending minutes digging through his few worldly possessions. He wondered if he found the gun yet, but if he did he made no comment on it. The knife was still on the floor, he could see it in the corner of his room from where either of them must have accidentally kicked it. He planned on retrieving it the moment he had the strength to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually a small white tub was placed on his bedside drawer, and Gluskin left the room, presumably to find him some painkillers. He returned moments later and added them next to the ointment. “Do you need any . . . help?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.” He popped two painkillers out of the packet and washed them down with some water. “Leave.” And Gluskin did, taking the tray and takeout cartons with him, leaving Waylon in dark isolation, aching several different ways.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>sorry for the shortness this time around peeps - hopefully next chapter will make up for it &gt;:3 nevertheless I hope you stick around for what's to come and by all means speak ur mind in the comments if u wanna!!! &lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Attenuate</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here's the sort-of-a-part-two to chapter five!! I hope ya'll don't mind the direction this one goes. I'm trying to see what tenderness would be like between these two messes lmao</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">
    <em>
      <span>Sunday Night</span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He barely made it past midnight, before lightning struck a tree further down the hill and woke him up, his body awake at once and groaning. He poked his thigh and winced, reaching blindly out at his bedside for his painkillers, before knocking over his glass and sending everything to the floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goddamnit!” he shouted, voice like the thunder raving above him. The rain, the lightning, the cold, this house, his body; it was all working up against him, culminating into one big angry tower and hitting him like a wave. “Shit,” he hissed, tears stinging the corners of his eyes. The pain in his leg wasn’t so much hurting him as it was reminding him, telling him with a cruel voice that he was alone and far from anywhere he might have once called home. Friendless and limbless, he was a chasm of a person. He was about to pull the covers over his head and force himself back into sleep, when over the thunder a new sound came; that of his door unlocking and a figure rushing in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Darling?” said the figure. Waylon looked to them, instantly recognising Gluskin. He was tying the cotton belt of his dressing gown around himself, over a dark set of pyjamas. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Actual</span>
  </em>
  <span> pyjamas, like the kind you’d find successful-looking men wearing in catalogues sixty years ago, nothing like the oversized t-shirt and boxer briefs Waylon was sporting. “I heard you shouting. Are you alright?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No, Waylon thought. But I don’t need you. In fact, I’ve never wanted anyone less around me than I do you in this very moment, and that’s more than the time where you were about to saw me in half, not that you remember any of that, do you? You bastard. I hate you. I wish you were dead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” he finally choked. “Can you . . . can you help me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The question stunned them both. More lightning cracked in the distance, and it seemed to shock Gluskin back to life, the man nodding and closing the door behind him. “What do you need?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I dropped some things. Can you pick them up?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon instructed him to where the painkillers, glass and ointment had fallen and his host dutifully retrieved them all, arranging them back on the drawer. “Is that all?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yes, he thought. Now leave me the fuck alone. “Not quite,” he relented. “There’s something else, but it’s . . . a lot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m here for anything, darling,” Gluskin vowed, head turned down toward him, dead pupils flickering like TV static, the intensity of them frightening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That ointment,” he began, “I bought it a while back at some roadside herbal shop, apparently it's meant to soothe any bad muscle.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin said nothing, just stood and listened. Waylon, painfully, elaborated. “Usually I’d do this myself, but everything hurts and I . . .”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need you. To do it for me, that is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I see,” said Gluskin. “How, though?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christ, how he wishes this bed could grow teeth and just swallow him. “It needs to be worked into the skin.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re asking me to massage you?” his host blinked, eyebrows rising.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Massage, rub-down, shiatsu, whatever. Point is, I can’t even bend to put the ointment on, which is where you’re needed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I see,” Gluskin said again. Does he have nothing bigger to say?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Forget it,” he receded, shaking his head and already sinking back under the covers. “I’ll just sleep it off.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? No!” Gluskin lowered himself to sit on the very edge of his bed, lightly running his hand over the sheets until he reached the bump of his half-limb, splaying his fingers over it almost protectively. “Please, I’m sorry if my silence came off wrong. I just . . . don’t know the right course of action to take that’ll best help you. I’m not very experienced in these things. In fact, I’m not experienced in them at all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon, despite himself, chuckled. “It’s fine. I have no idea what to do either.” Bravely, he rested his hand over Gluskin’s, the man’s breath hitching slightly as he did so. “But I’m fine to try if you are?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man gave him a small smile. “So long as you promise to tell me if I make a single misstep of any kind.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He chuckled again. “This whole thing is a misstep, but sure, I swear. Now c’mon.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They proceeded to take their time, and take it deathly slow. Gluskin was constantly asking him if what he was doing was alright, as though every second was precious and he didn’t wish to squander any of it. Waylon helped him with what amount of ointment to use, pouring it into his open palms and telling him what parts of his thigh needed the most attention. They were positioned closely, Waylon sitting back up against the headboard and Gluskin near his waist, the bedsheets thrown aside with his limb lying flat on the mattress as Gluskin tended to it. When he wasn’t asking questions he was awfully quiet throughout it all, almost reverent; his head down and his hands tender, stopping at the smallest twitch or sound until he got the go-ahead to continue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon, with only his underwear for modesty, frequently found himself pulling the front of his shirt down, conscious of his host’s hand even though the man couldn’t see him beyond basic sensation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t know if it was the ointment or Gluskin’s handling of him, but he soon found himself becoming less rigid, a gentle warmth spreading over him. The ointment had a faint orange scent to it, sweetening the air. At some point, he must have let go some wicked hum of appreciation, for Gluskin asked, “Any better?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Much,” he confirmed, too gooey to entertain common sense.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Should I stop?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not yet, I don’t think,” he said. This was the most human touch he’s had in months, regardless of who the hands belonged to, he’d be damned if he let them go so soon. “You’re doing a, uh, good job.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m glad to hear it.” For a second, one of Gluskin’s hands seemed to squeeze a portion of his inner thigh, an area they had established earlier wasn’t in need of any attention. He might have just imagined it, of course, his brain already a soup of neurons and heat in his skull, but real or not, it shocked him. Worryingly, he felt the seeds of interest begin to sow themselves under his skin, turning Gluskin’s tender touches into something . . . toothsome. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Trying to distract himself, he cleared his throat. “I suppose I should thank you for doing this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only if you think it necessary, darling. I’m not doing this for thanks.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He refrained from rolling his eyes. Does this guy have to be such a gentleman about everything? Or maybe he was just jealous, jealous that Gluskin seemed far calmer than him, all his attention trained on caring for him, whilst Waylon was just trying to keep any revealing noises from slipping out from between his lips. “What are you doing it for, then?” he queried, eyelids growing heavy, blurring the sight of Gluskin before him, treating him in the gloomy night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Forgiveness, mainly,” Gluskin answered, hands sweeping over the end of his stump, his thumbs working the ointment in small, wondrous circles that made all the breath in Waylon’s lungs leave him in faint puffs. “I feel that I’ve been treating you quite wrongly these past few days.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, you sure aren’t treating me badly now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you trying to be funny, darling?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe,” he blushed, eternally grateful that he couldn’t be seen like this, a red-cheeked mess at the mercy of Gluskin’s hands. Lord, since when was he so easy? “Go on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin went on. “I think I’ve been rather unfair to you. I think you already know all this, it’s hardly a secret, but I’ve been placing a lot of hope on you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hope of what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hope of answers mainly. You’ve already admitted quite a fair bit about me, though I only know you from glimpses I catch in dreams and memories. And while I don’t wish to harass you, I also can’t help but be drawn to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t blame you.” Half his brain was alight, screaming at him to remember what happened last time Gluskin so freely touched his bare skin, while the other half was submerged in a dark pool of bliss and intrigue. He briefly recalled an instance a couple of weeks back; while opening the door to one of his many motel rooms he saw one of his neighbours leave their room with a woman. His neighbour (a middle-aged man, a father most likely, and a husband too, if the wedding band on his finger was anything to go by) piling money into the woman’s decorated hands, the bright red of her nail-polish matching her smeared lipstick. He remembers being unnerved by the interaction, but what makes that any different than this? The only difference is Waylon's not paying Gluskin for his services. Though maybe it might be better if he was; money has a habit of taking the emotion out of things, and he could do with feeling less about what was taking place at the moment. “Is there anything you wish to know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin shrugged. “I fear knowing more than I already do may harm the mood. Only hours ago you were scrambling to pull a knife on me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you expecting me to be sorry about that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. I’m sure you had your reasons. The only hurtful thing I took from it is that I must have caused you a great deal of hurt in the past in order for that to be your reaction to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who’s to say I don’t react like that every time someone invades my personal space?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Darling.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin made no comment, continuing only to work. He kneaded Waylon more thoroughly now, now that the flesh was less tender and could take more pressure. Once in a while, Waylon would feel light tastes of the true, brute strength in those hands as they worked a nerve, and the interest simmering under his skin spread further. He remembered Gluskin hauling him back into bed not long ago, carrying him with all the care in the world; not as though he was delicate, but as though he was something treasured. It’s been a long time since he’s felt treasured, and certainly decades since anyone but his mother has carried him so lovingly. Except it wasn’t loving, it just </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span>, all other emotion was just out of Waylon’s own deteriorating perception. Gluskin’s blind but that’s about the only part of him that’s atrophied. Everything is still very much solid and functional, perhaps as a result of whatever toxic vat of junk they pumped into him at Murkoff, not to mention the enhancements/oddities the Engine left him with. He didn’t carry Waylon to bed because he thought it’d be </span>
  <em>
    <span>nice</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he did it because he can, and so he did. So why</span>
  <em>
    <span> did</span>
  </em>
  <span> it feel so nice?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re thinking,” commented his host, hands ghosting the inside of his thigh again, making all the hair on his arms and neck rise.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Am I?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can sense it. Care to spill?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not really,” he said bluntly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> “You’re tired. I don’t know the hour but I know I should leave to sleep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re probably right,” he sighed, tilting his head. “Care to stay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin spluttered, hands freezing over his skin. “Darling?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Waylon,” he corrected, finally revealing himself. The lightning and thunder had been growing steadily calmer for some time now, but he found himself missing it sorely. It was too quiet now, every sound too much, too hefty with meaning. He’s so sick of everything needing translating, of having to constantly check for red lines. He’s lonely and wants someone to know his name, is that too much to ask?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Waylon,” Gluskin said, testing the name like water. “Waylon . . ?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Park,” he supplied. “I was a software engineer for the Morpho—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You do?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sort of. Maybe.” Gluskin knitted his brow, the storm in his eyes swirling. “I remember hearing the name, as some doctors passed my cell. There was a man, at a computer behind a wall of glass. I was screaming for something . . .”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Help,” Waylon finished for him. “You were screaming for help. You were so frightened.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gluskin breathed in sharply, hands leaving Waylon, as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t be, his fingers crooked and hovering over his half-limb. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, hey.” Waylon reached out to him, sitting up and taking his wrists. He was so cold, his hands smelling of mandarin. “Eddie,” he sought, finally drawing the man’s attention back to him, his blind eyes wet with tears, like milky-white pearls. Waylon had the most maddening urge to press kisses over his eyelids, as if that can in any way fix things. But it might.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, he pulled on the man’s wrists, trying to drag him closer. “Get over here.” Soon enough, Eddie followed, cautiously lowering himself to the mattress, lying in a straight line beside him. Waylon turned into him, retrieving a corner of the duvet and pulling it over the two of them, he on his side and Eddie on his back, white eyes cast up at the ceiling like a corpse waiting for someone to close its eyelids. If Waylon wanted to, he could move his head by only an inch and he could kiss Eddie’s shoulder, or perhaps his neck. There’s a spot he’s eyeing now, just above the cotton collar of his pyjama top, the pale skin shining like ice. He licked his lips, closed his eyes and resigned himself to sleep, lest he does something he might regret. “Night,” he murmured into the pillow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goodnight, Waylon,” breathed Eddie.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>An hour or so later, when Eddie most likely thought Waylon to be asleep, he felt his host lean over him and kiss the crown of his head, before leaving the bed and exiting the room. Waylon rolled over into the spot he previously lied in, sinking into the fading Eddie-shaped warmth. When sleep finally took him, he dreamed. Or remembered.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You’re waking up, the smell hitting you before anything else. Rot. Not like the kind of sweet mush from an old apple, but real, coppery rot. Blood and shit and bile, stronger than you’ve ever smelt it throughout your time here. Above hangs a bright lamp, but its reach isn’t far, illuminating only what’s a few feet around you. The room is hot, feverish, but you’re cold. You’re naked, that’s why, and suddenly you feel a rough hand grip your leg; your old one, back when you had two. “You’re going to be beautiful,” the hand says, the scratchy glove covering its palm making goosebumps rise all over your body. There’s a face above the hand, a body keeping it all together. It’s giant and ugly, acidic and red. They look sick, inside and out, but you doubt you look much better either. “Think of our family,” they tell you, or something like that. And you do, but not theirs, just yours. You think of your wife and kids, your parents and cousins, even the annoying smug ones that ridiculed you at reunions. You think of birthdays and Christmases, parents evenings and Sunday dinners. You wish you had appreciated it all more, said ‘I love you’ more often and to more people. You hear the whirl of a saw between your legs and you scream.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You’re somewhere else now. Somewhere warmer, safer. Back in bed, but not with her. Someone else, then? A college fling from when you were going through your experimental stage, trying to make yourself interesting after the pubic shitstorm that was high school. Whoever they are, they’re not Lisa, and you’re definitely not in your dorm; it smells too nice, for starters. It smells of oranges. You’re in a lovely dark space and they’re running their hands all over you. Broad, tender hands holding you like you’re . . .  just something. Something worth touching. They’re humming, too, some sweet song that you don’t know but it soothes you regardless. They’re touching you more firmly now, wantonly, desperately. It feels like an apology, one that you readily accept. You try to reach out for them but you can’t see properly, they’re too much in the dark. There’s a mouth on you next, kissing your skin, biting, licking, owning. You love it. You try to say you love it but the words stick in your throat, what syllables do escape are drawn out and languid. You look down your body and there’s just blackness. “Where are you?” you finally manage, between gasps. “I can’t see you. Please, let me see you.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Two eyes, bright like lights, shine at you. They’re white, the pupils nothing but grey islands floating uselessly in their foggy centres. Your body runs cold and hot all at once. You ache. “Darling!” the eyes sigh, and then you’re back to screaming.</span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>That's all for 2020 bb! I wish you guys the best for 2021 and hopefully there should be an update for chapter seven on new year's day!! love you all! &lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Altitude</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>chapter 7 bb!!!!! ngl we're getting real near to the end of things now, and while this has been an arguably brief fic (for me at least lmao) I'm glad so many of u have stuck around and waited patiently for me to update this mess lol. can't thank ya enough!! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">
    <em>
      <span>Monday Morning</span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the morning there was no knocking, no muffled conversation through the door, no toast to burn in the kitchen. He awoke alone, like usual, only this time he </span>
  <em>
    <span>felt </span>
  </em>
  <span>it, rather than simply was it. It covered him, like a heavy shawl draped over his shoulders, trailing on the floor as he washed, pulled on his prosthesis and dressed. The shirt he slept in still smelt faintly of oranges. He abandoned dignity for a moment to hold it up to his nose and inhale, the memories attached to the scent both disturbing and soothing him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The house was cold and quiet, without a trace of Eddie in any of the usual rooms. He took a gentle trip to the other end of the hall, to where he assumed his host’s bedroom was. Eddie’s bedroom door was closed (it was the only door in the house still shut), and Waylon briefly considered knocking on it, saying something, perhaps apologising. Apologising for what, though? For coming here? Knowing him? Not stopping this madness when Eddie first pleaded him to, throwing his body against the glass like a trapped animal? Too late for that. Too late for anything other than to move forward.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He leaves Eddie’s door and makes his way into the kitchen. Everything is old and cold and grey: the table where they ate, the sink where they cleaned, the windows where light shined over it all. This house was no longer just a carcass, it was a grave, crumbling under him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He settles for what he can find in the kitchen cabinets, hoping what he takes wouldn’t be missed too much; coffee and a shallow bowl of expired cereal that turned into ash the moment he adds milk. He reaches into his back pocket, retrieves the knife he stole his first night here and returns it to its original drawer, closing it softly with the tips of his fingers. He sits down at the table and waits for Ben to pull up and finally take him to the mechanic. After that, once his car was fixed, he’d be free. Free to move forward, if he wanted. And he wanted. All he’s been doing since he came here is wanting, but always for the wrong things. Well, one wrong thing.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Monday Midday</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Mac’s Mechanics, it turned out, was only a thirty-minute walk from the shop to anywhere else in town. Ben explained this to him while they were there, saying that it’d take more than a couple of hours to replace the gasket, so he was free to explore in the meantime if he so wished.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You got six hours,” Mac, the broad-bodied (though not as broad as Eddie; then again, not many human beings are) mechanic told him, wiping grease off his hands with a rag that seemed to be dirtying him more than cleaning. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Want me to drive you back to Chet’s?” Ben offered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Chet’s?” echoed Mac, looking incredulously at Waylon. “You been staying at Chester’s?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For the past few days, he has,” Ben answered for him. “Dropped him off Friday, Chet took him without any trouble.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mac whistled. “Man, I bet you’re glad to be leaving soon, eh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon blinked. “Excuse me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mac flapped his rag. “All up on that hill with no one but Chet Reznor for company? I’m surprised you waited all this time to get your car fixed and didn’t just start running through the night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It wasn’t so bad,” he mumbled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m just sayin’,” shrugged the mechanic. “The day Chet moved in the whole town tried to connect, but he weren’t having none of it. Just stays all up there by himself, barely bothering anybody for anything. It’s probably for the best. Guy tends to have an unnerving effect on people. Not because of the bling thing, mind you,” he quickly added. “Just that he can be a bit . . . hard.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If you only knew, Waylon thought bitterly, but his heart wasn’t in it. He had a strange desire to defend Eddie. The people here don’t know the man he was, the least he can do is help the man he is now. “Well, he’s been nothing but kind to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That so?” said Ben, eyebrows raising.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes. A real, uh, gentleman.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess you’ll be sad to leave ‘im then,” said Mac.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he replied. “I guess I will.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Monday Afternoon</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He declined a ride from Ben and tried to make his own way back to Eddie’s, only to find out that this was a sore mistake. He found the hill, the last element in his way, to be the trickiest part of his journey. Several times he had to stop and recover his breath, wary of the tension in his half-limb and often having to adjust the setting of his prosthesis to accommodate the growing angle of the slope. But he knew he’d make it eventually, and he did, sweating and weary but he made it. The porch steps were hard as well, but he soon made it up those as well, hand stretched out for the front door’s handle when the house suddenly opened up to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Darling?” said Eddie, stepping into the doorway, head turned down to him. He was still in his pyjamas, his dressing gown untied and flowing behind him in the wind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah?” he answered, voice like a sigh, more out of breath than he had originally thought. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you alright?” asked his host, reaching out to grab his arm before immediately releasing him as though Waylon had shocked him. “You sound tired.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, that’s because I am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you walk up here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie frowned, already starting to recede back into the house. “Come inside, you ought to rest.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon shook his head as if to shake Eddie’s words out of his ears. “No, not yet. I need to do something first.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Talk to you, mainly,” he supposed, quickly running out of steps in his plan to follow. “Would you care to, uh, take a walk with me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie bit his lip, his lack of an outright rejection sparking hope. “A walk to where?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just around the house. Nowhere with any judgement, I promise.” He dug his hands deeper into his jacket, not knowing what to do with his hands. His meagre response seemed to be enough for Eddie, however,  the man’s white eyes darting around before landing back onto the patch of porch before Waylon’s feet. “Alright. Come in and wait while I get dressed.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Fifteen minutes later Eddie was dressed and Waylon downed enough painkillers to numb his leg for their walk. “Are you sure you’ll be warm enough?” asked his host, buttoning up his heavy-looking navy long coat that, if he still had pigment in his eyes, would have matched them perfectly. “I don’t want you freezing in the mud.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll be fine,” he dismissed, but Eddie didn’t seem to be believing him. The man frowned, no doubt hearing the floorboards’ minute creaking as Waylon shifted on one foot to the other, trying to keep himself warm while they stood in the hallway. Somehow, over the course of their short interlude, the wind had once again picked up and was creeping in through the cracks in the house’s poor structure. “Can we get moving?” he chattered. Eddie took off his scarf and held it out in both hands, not lowering it until Waylon —rolling his eyes as he did so— stepped under the woollen arch and let him swaddle his neck in the, admittedly, cushy fabric. “Happy?” he huffed one his host was done coddling him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Marginally,” Eddie hummed, finally opening the door. “Shall we?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“About time,” he said, stepping out with him and wrapping his arm in a loop around Eddie’s, only to cause another hitch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The second his arm found its way around Eddie’s, the man stopped in his tracks. “What are you doing?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? Unless you have one of those walking sticks or a dog I don’t know about, there’s no way I’m letting you move around by yourself. I’m not having you break your face by tripping over a molehill.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m perfectly capable . . .”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In the comfort of your own home, sure you are. Out here, however, I’m afraid we’re gonna need eyes for this particular trip. Besides, this thing goes both ways. I steer you away from any ditches, and you take some of the weight off my leg.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you in pain?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll be fine once we get moving,” he grimaced. “Let’s go.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They walked some fair distance from the house. The surrounding fields were flat and wide, muddy and rough like the frayed edges of cut cloth. The grass was dewed with rain and soaked them up to their knees. Once in a while they’d get stuck; Waylon wouldn’t be watching for a moment and lead Eddie through a particularly damp patch of earth, causing them both to falter and stumble before they awkwardly saved each other, sharing brief breathless laughs before continuing. Waylon’s sneakers quickly became wrecked and he made a joke about how he might have to leave his prosthesis in the mud and let Eddie carry him home, playing hot/cold until they made it back inside. “Y’know, like how bats use radar,” he explained.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You mean sonar,” Eddie corrected. “Bats see via acoustics.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright, expert,” he retorted, rolling his eyes. “Either way, it’s not an awful strategy. We’d be like Power Rangers or something, teaming up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Power what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nevermind. It’s a kids show, about a bunch of brightly coloured ninja people putting their cars on top of one another to make this huge robot.” He didn’t mention it being a favourite of his boys, how they used to play their own version of the show in the back garden, the younger in his yellow raincoat and the older in his red pyjamas, the pair of them acting out fights scene with a level of commitment to rival Juilliard alumni.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m afraid I’m rather behind on my televisual knowledge, darling,” said Eddie.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right, right,” he muttered, remembering too late that the man had most likely been shut off from the outside world for longer than he ever partook in it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They walked on with little more conversation, steadily approaching the outskirts of a dense forest. They meandered through the sparse trees, Eddie clinging to Waylon more tightly as they slowed over fallen branches. “Are you sure this is right?” his host queried, taking Waylon’s hand as he stepped precariously over yet another tree root. “This is starting to feel more taxing than enriching.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will you quit your whining? I’ve got you, you’re fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m simply worried about you damaging yourself just to prove a point. It's important we at least be </span>
  <em>
    <span>aware</span>
  </em>
  <span> of our limits, darling.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Believe me, I’m well aware of my limits,” he grunted, kicking another dead branch out the way to clear a spot for Eddie to place his boot. “I’m aware of it every time I wake up and go to scratch an itch on a knee that’s no longer attached to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie was quiet for a while, his lack of complaining disturbing him. He looked up to the man and saw that he appeared quite far away. “Hey,” he tried, pulling them both to a stop. “What’s up?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie was silent for another minute, then clearing his throat and gently saying, “I don’t think I ever said sorry to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For all of it, especially what I did to you. What I put you through. I’m sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He narrowed his eyes, dropping his arm from Eddie’s. “I thought you said you don’t remember all that.” They were trailing at the edge of the forest, on the border of where the grey grass turned green. It was as if they were standing in a church of some kind, the trees like columns and the logs like one-man pews. It all felt very sacrosanct.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie bowed his head. “I don’t. Not all of it, at least. It comes in shards, some more vivid than others, all are horrible though. The smallest things set it off, sounds and smells and such. Although, it’s hard to remember exactly what I saw when I can’t remember how to see. You being here has brought most of it out. It all just feels like a—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like a bad dream?” Waylon proposed. Eddie nodded. Waylon went on, “Yeah, I wish that’s all it could be. And if all I got from it was a few scratches and a couple aversions to louds noises and the smell of meat, maybe I’d’ve been able to move past it somehow.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And instead, you’re here,” finished Eddie. “With me.” His sorrowful expression bent into a frown. “I think I speak for both of us when I say it’d have been better for everyone if I had died in there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> die in there, though,” said Waylon. “That version of you, at least.” With his good foot he kicked another branch. “You know, I think amongst all the other batshit nonsense, that’s the one thing I can’t figure out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How you lived through that. I mean, I don’t know how much you remember, but I can recall a good ten feet of metal driving its way through your gut when I last saw you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah,” said Eddie. “I’m afraid I don’t have the full answer for that either. All I remember is someone else’s hand in mine, and then nothing. However long later, I woke up blind and in so much pain I thought I was dying for a second time. I was beyond words, a nurse only coming to sedate me when I rattled my handcuffs enough to grab her attention.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It must have been hard for you,” Waylon noted, voice too firm to read as sympathetic. “Unable to see what had happened to you, only ever feeling it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie nodded. “I must have been there for a fortnight before they even told me I was blind. Between the surgeries and the induced comas to shut me up, I was lucky if I knew my name. They offered therapy. I declined, though not very politely.” In the next few sentences, his voice became more strained. “They did send a shrink into my room at one point, though. Not that I knew it. I thought it was just another doctor. She asked me what I could remember, what I thought I couldn’t, my time at Mount Massive, medical history, childhood; I think at that point I must have caused another scene, as there’s a blank space after her asking about my family. Couple days later I have to take seven more pills and I hear things like ‘borderline personality’ and ‘manic schizophrenic’ floating outside my room.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How’d you get them to release you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“After I healed and calmed down, they had no choice but to. All my files, however reliable they’d have actually been, went up in smoke along with the asylum. I wasn’t the only survivor, there must have been at least a hundred of us in just one ward, not that I had the energy to interact with any of them. As far as the hospital knew, I was just some random soul with anger issues that Murkoff scraped out from some gutter and dumped into the Engine. They wrote some prescriptions and sent me on my way. Without anything following me, I could go anywhere.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you chose . . . here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man shrugged. “It’s cheap and quiet. I can’t do any harm to anybody all the way out here. I’m practically dead.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon looked around. The place was like a second purgatory, vast and free of perception. A place of little opinion, perfect for forgetting and being forgotten. “Lonely though,” he murmured.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only sometimes,” said Eddie.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you happy?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man blinked. “I think I lost that privilege quite some time ago. I’d feel guilty if I enjoyed myself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You must have some things you enjoy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I enjoy you.” The moment Eddie said those words, they both flinched, as though something had rippled between them; a change of some sort. Waylon’s host shook his head, ears turning red. “I’m sorry, that came out wrong.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, what I meant to say is that, all things considered, you've . . . been nice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only because I thought you’d kill me if I wasn’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie winced. “Still, thank-you. Despite everything, thank-you. I’ll be sad to see you go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon shifted, at a loss. He looked up briefly through the thin canopy of trees, sighing. “We should head back.” Not waiting for an answer from Eddie, he took the man’s arm once more and lead them out of the forest’s wild perimeter.</span>
  <span></span>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>They walked on for another half-hour, arm in arm, silent and mournful like ghosts. Despite their respective disabilities, they were making good ground, retracing the path they had blundered through the grass earlier. The house was no longer a dot in the distance but a sizable goal, growing with every step. Not long now until it was time to go, the thought as bittersweet as it was inescapable. He tried to place himself somewhere different, let his mind wander to other warmer memories, but he was unable. He stayed, pitifully rooted in the present with Eddie, trekking through the yards of wet fields ahead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To say he was conflicted would be an understatement. He felt pulled, taught, caught between two equally questionable desires. All the words Eddie just confessed to him lied stuck to the side of his mind like a tumour, pulsing with an importance that overshadowed all else. The man just confessed not thirty minutes earlier that he ‘enjoys’ Waylon, whatever the fuck that means. Did he enjoy him in the same way when he had him tied at the mercy of a saw? He heaved a breath, exhausted all over, inside and out. He thought of last night, of how gentle Eddie was, of how pathetic he felt, unable to stop the sympathy forcing its way into his heart; sympathy for them both, two horrible little organisms feeling around in the dark like grubs. Then there was the excitement, the need, the want for Eddie to stay close to him, preferably forever, the pull so intense it terrified him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christ, maybe he ought to have died in the asylum with Eddie as well, that way he could have avoided this disaster of emotions altogether. He misses the road; there’s no space for thought when you’re constantly moving. Here, confined to stand stagnant in Eddie’s house for all these few days, he’s had to confront more about himself than he’s ever been willing, the most horrible revelation to come out of this being that he’s lonely. Well, not just that. He’s known he’s lonely for the past year, what he’s actually learnt that’s so new and frightening is that he doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>want</span>
  </em>
  <span> to be lonely. He wants the road to come to an end. He wants someone to come home to again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re thinking again,” Eddie remarked, spooking him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s not much else to do out here,” he said back numbly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We could talk.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Haven’t we already done enough of that for one day?” He looked up to Eddie, the man clearly hurt. It didn’t stop him, however.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What about you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What about me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your story, after the asylum.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He scoffed. “It’s not a very good story.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not asking to compare battle scars. I’m just curious.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Half of my battle scars can be traced back to you,” he snipped, then hanging his head. “Do you really want to know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Eddie said, voice soft against the circling wind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so he told him. He spoke about waking up in hospital, Lisa holding his hand and resting against his chest. He stroked her head until she woke up and they both broke down in tears, kissing what could be kissed and hugging what could be hugged. He asked where the boys were, only for her to break down into more tears, the sight scaring him. She explained that the boys were with her sister, had been for a week now, and soon she’d be up there with them before they move onto someplace else. He was so tired he barely put up a fight, knowing what she was doing was the smartest thing, because she always does the smartest thing. It’s him that’s the idiot, the one that started all this misery, and now it was up to her to fix it for their family, the family that he put in harm’s way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then Simon Peacock came in, explained that he was from the site Waylon had contacted before he blew the whistle on Murkoff. Peacock said he’d see to it that his family would be relocated to somewhere out of Murkoff’s reach, if such a place existed. Lisa visited him for another five days before leaving for Portland to be with the boys. He couldn’t even get out of bed to hold her properly, unable to do much besides let her kiss him one last time and watch her go. Before she went, she promised that once things blew over, he could come back and be with him, and he believed her. He still does, but only partly. He doesn’t know where Peacock hid them, in fact, he can’t even find Peacock any more. It's as though they all turned to sand and slipped out of his hands, leaving him to his own lonesome devices.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once he healed and more or less got the hang of being his new self, he set off. Sometimes he found himself getting tailed by an unmarked car, other times it was just his own anxiety. Either way, three months later and it became clear to his pursuers that they weren’t leading him to anything or supplying any new information they abandoned him for stronger leads. He was left alone, Murkoff instead turning to online smear campaigns and lawsuits, but he was too far away from any of it to care. He was as good as dead now. It would have been his third lap of the country this month, had it not been for the fateful implosion of his head gasket, resulting in everything else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Y’know, I can see why you chose this place,” he admitted. They had stopped not thirty feet away from the house, their clothes flapping all around them as they stood like gravestones. “What you said about being unable to do any harm to anyone out here, I get it now. I wish I had somewhere like this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie shook his head. “It’d kill you. You need to be out in the world, ready for when your family needs you again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And if they don’t need me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then I suppose you just need to find someone else who does.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were close now; they had been this entire trip, but always under the flimsy pretence of needing each other’s support and body heat. Waylon was warm, as was Eddie, but now for different reasons. Eddie was like a damn furnace, blocking half the wind, shielding him. How can someone capable of such monstrosity be such a comfort at the same time? The man loomed over him, only this time it wasn’t menacing, it was lovely. Eddie’s eyes, he realised, were of the same grey as the sky above them, as though the back of his head was hollow and his eyes were windows to the atmosphere. “Eddie,” he warned, realising how dangerous this was, how gorgeous it all seemed. Eddie, sky-eyed, replied, “Waylon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What is it?” said Waylon, the wind picking up but the warmth in his head and heart only rising, head canting up whilst Eddie’s turned down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I—” Eddie breathed, before a sound interrupted him. It was the noise of a vehicle struggling up a hill, and sure enough, Waylon looked over Eddie to see Ben’s truck driving up to the house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s Ben,” he muttered, heart sinking but feet moving, taking Eddie’s hand and leading him over the final tufts of grass before meeting the local at the front of the house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ben pulled up and exited the truck, waving as he shuffled over to them. Waylon let go of Eddie to meet him halfway. “Is the car fixed?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yep,” said Ben gruffly. “All good to go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How much does Mac want?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fifteen-hundred.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright. I’ll come by later with the money.” It’ll make quite the dent in his savings, but it’s necessary. “Thank-you, Ben, for helping with everything. It’s much appreciated.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anytime.” He looked to Waylon’s side, presumably staring at Eddie, who hung back closer to the house. “You alright, Chet?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine, thanks,” his host called back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s good you two are out here, actually. I, ah, also come with a proposition. Miriam put me up to it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Proposition?” chuckled Waylon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dinner,” Ben clarified. “Before you get back on the road. Chet you’re invited, too!” he called out. Waylon looked over his shoulder at Eddie, the man’s expression sour. He turned back around to Ben.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’d love to come to dinner, Ben.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you sure? I know you’re probably itching to get back out into the world now that your car’s back up and running.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can wait if dinner’s on the table,” Waylon assured him. “Count us both in.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ben exhaled. “Thank God. I don’t think Miriam would have forgiven me if I didn’t let you go without having you over. I’ll swing by at seven to pick you guys up, that sound alright?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Perfect, thank-you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ben wasted little time in leaving, most likely eager to get back home and tell Miriam the good news. Waylon waved him farewell down the hill, sensing Eddie approaching behind, his presence like a soft shadow at his back. “What exactly have you gotten us into?” worried his host.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dinner with friends. Ben’s coming at seven to pick us up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Seven?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.” He turned around smiling up at Eddie. “Which probably means I won’t be leaving just yet. You alright to take me on for another night?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course, darling,” said Eddie, voice warm and yet it sent a shudder down his spine. He cleared his throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Great, now let's get back inside. My shoes are ruined and I need a damn bath.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Has it become apparent yet that though I adore angst I can't handle my own poison?? I'm a fluffy moron at heart so if y'all got this far in expecting blood to be shed, I'm afraid not &lt;:'0<br/>the boys have a dinner to go to now tho! hopefully y'all will stay to see what happens :3 see ya in the next one! &lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Atone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>ahhh hey y'all sorry for missing yesterday's upload - life happened and I accidentally skipped a day lol<br/>Anyways, here's the eighth instalment of this shitshow of mine, hope you all enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">
    <em>
      <span>Monday Evening</span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For the past three hours, Eddie has been upstairs searching desperately for an outfit for tonight’s dinner while Waylon sits downstairs in the kitchen already dressed and shaking his head. Granted, from his own limited wardrobe (i.e. his one duffel bag) he had far less choice than Eddie, but nevertheless, he managed to wrangle an outfit together that he hoped wouldn't seem too casual for whatever kind of setting Ben’s wife was preparing. Then again, all of his anxieties were nothing in comparison to Eddie’s, who had yet to settle on a single outfit and with only a frightening fifteen minutes to go until Ben picked them up. He could still hear him upstairs through the ceiling, pacing back and forth, no doubt trying things on before flinging them off and repeating the exhaustive process.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had half a mind to get up and knock some sense into the man, but that would involve tackling those stairs in his crutches (after his walk he had done away with his prosthesis for the sake of comfort) and he didn’t fancy snapping his neck on the way up and ruining the night before it had even begun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, however, Eddie descended, coming into the kitchen’s doorway and fiddling with one the cuffs of his shirt. At his entry, Waylon cleared his throat. His host looked up, frowning. “What is it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing,” Waylon shrugged. “Come closer, I wanna see you better.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie, following his voice, approached his place at the table and stood over him nervously. “Go on,” he said. “Say something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That you think it’s too much, or not enough. And what about the colours?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What about them?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are they too bright? Too dull? I need you to be my eyes again, darling.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They look fine,” he floundered. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>You</span>
  </em>
  <span> look fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just fine?” Eddie’s frown deepened. “As in, fine for a blind man?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>mean</span>
  </em>
  <span> fine as in </span>
  <em>
    <span>nice</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” Reaching for his crutches he got up from his seat and balanced himself well enough to dust down the deep blue sweater vest Eddie wore over his white shirt. It was a nice hue against his host’s pale complexion, the fit of it perfect against Eddie’s body. He picked at some minuscule dots of lint along his waist, becoming so engrossed in the task that he didn’t take notice of Eddie until it was too late. By the time he realised what he was doing, Eddie had already turned his head down to him and wore an expression of mingled shock and wonder. Waylon took a step back, coughing. “Sorry just, erm, fluffing. You look good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie’s frown quirked up a fraction. “Thank-you. And what about you? What’re you wearing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon snorted. “You sound like you’re speaking to a call girl.” Eddie’s expression soured and he resumed fiddling with his sleeves. “Nevermind, then,” he grumbled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon laughed, unable to stop himself. He lightly punched Eddie’s shoulder. “Just teasing. If anything I feel underdressed standing next to you. You’ll be doing all the heavy-lifting looks-wise tonight I’m afraid, picking up my slack.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, darling. Why didn’t you say? I could have lent you something of mine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The thought of Waylon’s 6’1 and hundred and fifty-pound self wearing anything from Eddie’s 6’5 and two-hundred-pound closet was enough to make him laugh a second time. He stifled himself, however, not wanting to insult Eddie’s generosity. “Thanks but I think I’m  alright.” Without his prosthesis to give the illusion of a second foot, Waylon ended up rolling the loose cuff of his trousers up to his knee, hoping that on top of his polo shirt and jacket he won’t look like too much of a slob.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sure you look lovely, darling,” Eddie reassured him, patting his arm.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Not long after they heard the sound of Ben’s tuck’s horn blast outside the house, and with a toothy smile Waylon dragged Eddie to the front hallway, helping the man into his coat. All ready, Waylon looked up to his host. “You good?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie nodded, though his smile was watery and his brow had yet to smooth out from its furrow. Waylon, knowing better and yet choosing to do worse, wove his arm around Eddie’s just as he did earlier that day. “You sure?” he checked. “Because if not, we can always just say we caught something while we were out and don’t wanna get Ben and Miriam sick. You don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>have</span>
  </em>
  <span> to do this, you know. I’m not going to force you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Why was he suddenly acting so compassionate to the man that months earlier wanting nothing more than to hunt him down and drive a rusting knife through his insides? He’s been asking himself that all weekend, and now he’s finally come to a suitable answer: things have changed. He’s changed, as has Eddie. They’ve both evolved, recovered, perhaps not entirely better but certainly different. There’s still much they need to work through, of course. Some wounds are simply too vast to heal, but they can try their best to treat the resulting hurt. And Waylon wants to help, because Eddie needs it. They both do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie shook his head, his smile slowly solidifying. “I don’t deserve you, darling.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We don’t deserve a lot of things, and yet we’re still delivered them,” Waylon supposed. “The key is to not look at what we get too closely and just accept it. Accept me, Eddie.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Very well,” Eddie smiled wider, white eyes gleaming like polished stars. “I accept you. Shall we go now? I’d hate to keep Ben waiting.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure,” he grinned back, opening the door, the two of them stepping out into the world as something new. Something changed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <em>
      <span>Monday Night</span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dinner at the Gerber’s (Ben and Miriam’s) was the nicest night of his life post-Mount Massive. Miriam was a warm but firm presence, obviously the head of her quaint household. The second she opened the door to him and Eddie, she opened her arms and welcomed them in, executing any prior anxiety with ease. On their way inside to the dining room, she asked Eddie how her order was coming along; a topic Eddie was most at home with and grew into quite the conversationalist, provided the topic was solely on tailoring. Waylon got his share of discussion as well, Miriam (“Please, call me Mim,” she had insisted. “The only people who can call me Miriam is my mother and my pastor.”) asked him all sorts of questions pertaining to his travels, never once brushing the topic of his leg unless it was about how best he wanted to sit at the table. He discovered that Miriam was very much present, in that she only cared about people’s here and now, rather than their pasts; which was greatly beneficial to both him and Eddie.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The food itself was also gorgeous: pork chops with roasted potatoes and vegetables, all cooked in a glaze that Miriam declared she’d only divulge the recipe of to her grave and perhaps her grandchildren. “Not that they’d want it,” she sighed. “Kids today don’t even come downstairs for dinner any more.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon laughed at this, which was a mistake, as Miriam then asked, “You got any children, Jamie?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Needing a moment to settle on an answer, Waylon sipped his wine. Eddie, who was sitting beside him, tilted his head over to him, nervous. Waylon had never told him of his family but, then again, Eddie hadn’t told Waylon about his either. There was no need, the essentials were all in the folder Waylon found in the asylum. As for the notes Waylon wrote to Lisa during his torture, those wild scribbles of in that thin notepad he snatched from some office drawer, they had vanished along with everything else. Whatever happened to those notes? Lost, most likely. Burnt down with the house in Denver. The thought of this chilled him, and he remembered he still needs to swallow his wine  and answer Miriam’s question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” he says at last. “I do.” Both Miriam’s and Ben’s expressions lighten. Miriam leaned back in her seat, swirling her wine glass idly.  “Really?” she goes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nods. “Two boys. Oldest is ten and the youngest would have just turned . . . eight,” he realises. Christ, did he really just forget? Blame it on the wine, he reasons, taking another sip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They with anyone while you’re away?” says Ben.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My wi— uh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>ex</span>
  </em>
  <span>-wife,” he answers. “I don’t really get to see them much, to be honest.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ben nods, as if he could ever possibly understand. “She win the custody battle?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Something like that,” he replies. “It’s for the best, really.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just then he felt a hand on his half-limb, petting him under the table. He turns his head and sees Eddie, the man continuing to pick at his food one-handed. Waylon places his hand over Eddie’s, wordlessly thanking him before retracting back up and Eddie’s hand falling away from him. It’s a small sign, but it’s enough. ‘I’m here’ is what it translates to. ‘I know’ is what Waylon says back.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The night drifted on into comfortable oblivion. Miriam stayed clear of any talk of children or families and brought out tiramisu for dessert. More drinking followed, the Gerber drinks cabinet eclectic and bountiful. Eddie nursed the one gin and tonic Ben made for him but stuck mainly to water and stuck even closer to Waylon. And Waylon, mellow from the wine and atmosphere, was not against having Eddie so close to him, the two of them knee-to-knee under the table and sharing the occasional touch to remind each other of where they were and how they were coping.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Overall, their time at the Gerber’s was a pleasant one, not so much perfect as it was just human. People in a room laughing amongst one another, learning little facts (most of which were only half-true on Eddie and Waylon’s part) and entertaining various stories. But as the night began to wind down Waylon could sense Eddie was becoming tired, his social battery over-exposed and rapidly expiring. Waylon soon announced that they ought to head home and Ben volunteered to take them back. Miriam saw them off at the door, hugging and kissing their cheeks and making Waylon promise that the next time he’s in town he will come straight back here. As Eddie headed towards Ben’s truck Waylon was still caught in Miriam’s arms; when she released him she smiled at him knowingly. “Thank-you, for bringing Chet down here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re acting like I bribed him into coming,” he joked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Miriam folded her arms, that knowing glint in her eye persisting. “Ben and I have been inviting Chet to dinner for months now. You’ve been here for all of two seconds and you’ve already got him running down that hill for you. Is there something going on in that house you two ain’t telling me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he laughed, “but I don’t have any secret technique, if that’s what you’re asking. I guess he just needed someone to take him by the ear and y’know, encourage him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Miriam hummed. “Well, I hope you still come back on occasion to keep Chet </span>
  <em>
    <span>encouraged</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she winked. Waylon, thinking that he just narrowly missed some grand innuendo, merely blushed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks for having us, Mim,” he concluded, letting her pull him in back for one last bone-breaking hug before joining Eddie and Ben in the truck, Miriam waving them away from her doorway. In his front passenger seat, Waylon looked over his shoulder to Eddie, the man leaning his head against the cool backseat window, his eyes closed but fluttering underneath their pale lids, busy dreaming or thinking. </span>
</p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <em>
      <span>Monday Midnight</span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Back in the house, they pushed the couch into the centre of the living room and let moonlight filter in through the windows, washing them in white light that made their skin glow. Their shoes were off and Eddie’s sweater vest had at some point vanished, along with Waylon’s crutches. Marooned on the couch, he let Eddie go into the kitchen to fetch a bottle of wine and glasses. When he returned he asked his host, “Why didn’t you drink at dinner?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie shrugged, sitting down and handing Waylon his glass and bottle. “I don’t trust myself. Drinking has never done much good for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And yet you have this,” he remarked, shaking the bottle before pouring out their glasses and handing one to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was a gift from Ben when I moved in. Tonight felt as good as any occasion as any to break it out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And do you trust yourself?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If I don’t, I have you to help.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anything I should keep a lookout for?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie shook his head. “I’m not going to reach a point where you need to watch me. It’s been a long time since I’ve been that low.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How low we talking here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie turned his head to him, his expression saying enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah,” said Waylon. “Right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is different, though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hope it is. Not like I can run away, can I? I’m putting a lot of faith in you here, Gluskin.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know you are. I promise you, I don’t intend to squander it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good,” he hummed, clinking his glass with his host’s. “Now drink. I still have that gun somewhere around here, just so you know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you even know how to use it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you wanna balance an apple on your head and find out?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They laughed. It was a strange thing to laugh about, yes, but they did it nonetheless. This whole damn thing has been nothing but strange, to be perfectly honest. A weekend and a bit of pure insanity. God, he’s going to miss it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are?” said Eddie. Shit, had he said that last part out loud?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am,” he admitted, deciding there’s no point deflecting what he already knows to be true. They had shifted positions on the couch, seated on either end and sinking deeper into the cushions, Eddie’s legs stretched out while Waylon’s were folded beneath him. Waylon noticed that the first two buttons on Eddie’s shirt had come undone, as had all the buttons on Waylon’s polo shirt. Be it because of the drink or their close bodily proximity he had no way of telling, but the house’s usual chill had departed for the night, the space around them balmy and . . . encouraging.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to miss you too,” said Eddie, biting his lip and then adding, “You could always stay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean, you could stay for longer,” Eddie quickly covered, eyes widening like moons. “Another week or so, if you wanted.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Or you could come with me,” Waylon suggested. “If you wanted.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie chuckled. “Even if you were being serious, I couldn’t. I’m enough of a burden just sitting here alone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>am</span>
  </em>
  <span> serious though,” said Waylon, sitting up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie’s eyes narrowed. “Whyever would you bring me with you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Company?” he offered. “I could show you all the best sights.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think I’d be much fun to bring sight-seeing, darling.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not all about seeing, though. You ever been to Torch Lake up in Michigan?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie shook his head. Waylon went on, “It’s this little spot up North, I stopped there once just to get some fresh air. The air is cool up there, feels like you’re breathing to actually live, y’know? Not just because you have to, but because you actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>want</span>
  </em>
  <span> to. The water’s just right, too. Cold but not bitter and the most perfect blue. It’s quiet on weekdays, and it’s right in the way of sunlight so you feel the warmth on your face and the cold on your feet from where the water gets you. There’s a hundred little spots like that all over Michigan. Prime tiny lakes, always quiet and clean. You’d love it there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sure I would,” said Eddie sadly. Waylon, a little drunk and rather inspired, drained the last of his glass and rested it on the floor, all before climbing closer to Eddie, touching his arm first for permission. When Eddie made no sign of rejection, he neared him some more, taking his face into his hands. “We can do it, you know. Me and you. Just us.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Waylon—” Eddie grimaced.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m serious, Eddie. Do you seriously like it here that much? Are you really fine to just die here and have that be the end of it? The end of </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d be finer with it if you stayed and kept me company.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Eddie—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Waylon,” his host interrupted. “You’ve been drinking—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So have you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not as much though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So hurry up.” He let go of Eddie’s face, watching as Eddie swirled the last few drips on wine in his glass and tipped it down his throat, putting his glass down somewhere unimportant before Waylon approached him again. “So what do you think?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think you need to go to bed,” Eddie muttered. “What you’re saying isn’t making any sense, darling.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“None of this makes sense. You should be dead, for starters.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you wish I was?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I used to,” he confessed. “Now I’m not so sure.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie nodded solemnly, reaching a tentative hand out and finding the tragic end of Waylon’s leg, tracing the edge of it through his jeans. “I wish I could undo it, every last thing.” His eyes began to shine, wet with the oncoming of tears. “Your family. Your wife, your </span>
  <em>
    <span>children</span>
  </em>
  <span>—” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He took Eddie’s wrist, not moving his hand but just holding him. “There’s nothing you can do to fix it. Nothing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, but—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Eddie,” he commanded, the man falling silent. “There is nothing you can do to change the state of things. Some of it was your fault, some of it wasn’t. Either way,  you can’t resolve any of it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie lowered his head, his body soft and open as Waylon climbed into his lap, the man clearly nervous but holding him tightly, his warm hand always returning to his thigh, perhaps to make sure he never loses sight (ha) of what he did. Waylon rested his forehead against his, the moonlight glowing through the windows and encasing both of them. In the silence, Eddie said softly, “Having you here hurts. Letting you go would hurt even more, though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not going anywhere until the morning,” he told him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stay, please,” Eddie croaked. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I </span>
  <em>
    <span>need</span>
  </em>
  <span> you. You </span>
  <em>
    <span>have</span>
  </em>
  <span> to stay. I shouldn’t say it, I know, but I need you around. It’s horrible, but I need you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon leaned away, giving Eddie space to breathe. He watched the man sniffle and hiccup, all snotty and teary and pathetic. Waylon stayed beside him, giving him time to produce a handkerchief and clean himself, the whole time watching him and falling. Falling hard and fast and wholly. What he said earlier wasn’t wrong; Eddie has caused a lot of damage, none of which either of them can fix. There are things Waylon has also done that are simply forever broken: his marriage, for example. Some things smash apart and stay that way. His leg won’t magically grow back and Eddie won’t ever see again. Some things are simply beyond repair, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t beyond help. And they both at least deserve that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Eddie was done with his handkerchief, the piece of ruined cloth tumbling crumpled to the floor to join the wine glasses, Waylon leaned his head on Eddie’s shoulder, the pair of them staring out toward the windows. When the world stilled again, Waylon took Eddie’s hand, this time not placing it on his thigh but around his waist. Eddie turned to him, grey eyes storming but hand remaining firmly clasped on the wiry muscle of his waist. “Waylon?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Eddie,” Waylon began. “Can I kiss you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The storm in Eddie’s eyes broke. “Do you . . . do you want to?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think so,” Waylon replied.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie shook his head. “No, not good enough. Do you </span>
  <em>
    <span>want</span>
  </em>
  <span> to?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon smiled, amazed at the man before him. “Yes, I want to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, that’s good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How so?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I want to kiss you too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon laughed. “You’re right, that is good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie, rather coquettishly, said, “So what are you waiting for?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon needed no further instruction. As Eddie turned toward him, arms winding even tighter around his middle, Waylon wrapped his own arms around his host’s neck and gently pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, a small invite that Eddie readily returned. Waylon dropped back-first onto the couch, Eddie blanketing him on top, the two of them matching each other’s chaste affections before Waylon’s tongue swept over Eddie’s bottom lip and took it between his teeth, lightly biting and earning a minuscule gasp from his host, and that was it. Waylon ran his fingers through Eddie’s hair as he dove tongue-first into Eddie’s mouth, dazed to hear the small moan Eddie emitted as he began to roll his tongue over his own, tasting Waylon as much as Waylon was tasting him. Between the gaps they took to breathe, Eddie buried his face in Waylon’s neck, grunting whenever Waylon tugged at his hair. “Stay,” Eddie hissed into his skin, licking and kissing at his neck. “Please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just for tonight,” Waylon muttered, pulling on Eddie’s hair and bringing their lips back together, biting what he wanted to bite and kissing what he wanted to kiss. Eddie —clearly out of practice— was easily manipulated, the man squirming whenever he so much as sucked on his tongue or stroked his hair. Wanting to experiment, he broke from Eddie’s mouth to explore his jaw and neck, discovering several spots that caused Eddie to make several different sounds, all of which were as lovely as the next. As he mouthed over Eddie’s Adam’s apple, feeling it bob between his teeth as the man choked on his cries, he asked him, “You have a bed, don’t you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie nodded, forgetting words in place of another barely-contained gasp. How long has it since he’s done this with someone, if ever? Waylon wonders. He never knew the same man that could holler obscenities down the halls of a mental asylum could also make the same sighs he was making now. “Eddie,” he growled. “Bed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright,” Eddie complied, detangling himself from Waylon for a moment only to instantly reconnect, pulling him into his arms until he was carrying Waylon bridal-style out of the living room and up to his bedroom. As Eddie ascended the staircase, Waylon looked up to him, realising that perhaps him finding Eddie here wasn’t a curse after all, but instead another chapter. Either way, he was very interested in seeing where things went next.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>*pops champagne bottle* yyEEAHHH BABYYYYY - next chapter is the long-awaited gratuitous smut scene which I hope is enough of an apology for making y'all wait this long lmao. Does an eight chapter wait for smut qualify as a slow burn????<br/>See you guys in the next one! &lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Addoom</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>ah shit i was late again &gt;:| but hey I hope the smut makes up for it???? It's uh,,,, something lmao<br/>I don't claim to be good at smut by any means of the imagination so soz in advance if this is shite lol &lt;:B</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">
    <em>
      <span>It Doesn’t Matter</span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t have much time to properly absorb the details of Eddie’s bedroom; he was far too occupied with Eddie himself, namely with wrestling more of his shirt buttons undone as he was carried to bed. He did, however, manage to observe a few things: Eddie’s room was sparse and functional, clean to the point of boredom. It wasn’t all bad, though. He enjoyed the smell of the bedsheets as he was lowered down onto them, their scent of laundry detergent and a particularly sultry tinge that could only be described as </span>
  <em>
    <span>Eddie</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stretched out across the bed, having only seconds to himself before Eddie surged over him, eagerly trying to claim his mouth and resume what they started on the couch. He tried his best to set a pace, but Eddie was so keyed up he didn’t know how to help. It was as if Eddie was terrified he might vanish out from underneath him, the man desperately kissing and clinging to whatever part of Waylon he could. “Eddie,” he said firmly, pushing on the man’s wide shoulders. It was hard to keep focus, though, especially with the way Eddie was nipping at a spot just below his ear, making his vision blur whenever his teeth grazed the sensitive skin. “Eddie,” he gasped, pushing against his shoulders even harder. “Calm down.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie snapped up, hovering over Waylon with his arms on either side of his head, pinning him to the mattress. Waylon looked up in awe, taking in the sight of the man above him: Eddie’s lips were wet and his cheeks were flushed a light pink, his eyes sparkling like faraway stars. Waylon’s expression softened as he reached up to cup Eddie’s face, bringing him back down and kissing him sweetly, biting down on his lip whenever Eddie grew too excited and tried to rush things. He wants this to be slow, whatever ‘this’ is. “I’ve got you,” he assured him, carding his fingers through Eddie’s hair and feeling the man melt into him, the tension in his arms and shoulders easing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie was abnormally vocal, which was more arousing to Waylon than it ought to be. For a man of Eddie’s stature he was awfully delicate, his mouth never straying far from Waylon’s skin and his hold on him all-encompassing. Waylon was by no means a small man, but it was impossible to feel anything but irrelevant in Eddie’s arms, and yet he still had all the power. Eddie had strength but nowhere to put it, relying wholly on Waylon to guide him. It took ages just to get the man to refrain from kissing Waylon like was trying to eat him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon helped him take his time, and after leaving an impressive mark on the underside of his jaw he wound his hands between the two of them and undid the last of Eddie’s shirt buttons. “Off,” he commanded, to which Eddie nodded and sat up, wordlessly shedding his shirt before him. From the way Waylon watched you’d think he was stargazing, and in a way he was. Eddie’s torso was a constellation of scars, some thin and winding like streams on a map and others gnarled in swirls like churned earth, yet all of it was beautiful. Well, perhaps not entirely beautiful; what they represented was anything but. But they were a part of Eddie, and so Waylon adored them as equally as the rest of him. He roamed his hands over Eddie’s chest, tracing each scar and drawing out little shivers from his partner. His lips then soon joined his fingers, lathering attention across the expanse of skin, Eddie’s arms shaking on either side of him, the man trying his best to not collapse. Eddie’s resilience was rewarded with a bite to one of his nipples, grinning as he felt Eddie jump. “Darling!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” he grinned, pressing a firm kiss over one of Eddie’s pecs before rolling his tongue once more over his nipple. “Want me to stop?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t . . . be presumptuous,” said Eddie, voice ending in another startled cry as Waylon gripped his waist and brought his chest closer to his mouth, layering equal swathes of his tongue over each fair pink nipple. It was quite the power trip, to have Eddie under his thumb like this, the tough muscle of his waist rippling in his grasp. He dug his nails into his host, causing Eddie to writhe over him, caught between Waylon’s nails and teeth like prey.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometime later and Waylon had painted almost the entirety of Eddie’s chest red and violet, his nipples hard and glistening with his affection, but now he wanted more. He could tell Eddie did as well, the man’s whole body singing with a carnal need that Waylon lived to sate. “Are you fine to go further?” he asked him during a soft interlude, stroking his cheek. “Does ‘further’ involve you losing this?” Eddie replied, tugging at the bottom of Waylon’s shirt. “Just to make things even,” he added, his eyes a dark grey, like smoke from a bonfire.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that all you want?” Waylon pouted but nevertheless complied, nudging Eddie off of him for a moment as he sat up to strip himself of his polo shirt, throwing it into the same corner as Eddie’s button-up. “Better?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know yet, let me feel you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon lied back down and let Eddie explore him properly, the man pressing his face into his neck as he felt him. But soon enough he grew tired of just fleeting touches and decided to resume control; once in a while their hips would bump into another’s and Waylon’s eyes would widen, feeling just how badly both of them needed this as their clothed erections grazed over one another. Returning to Eddie’s chest, he pinched one of his abused nipples, chuckling when Eddie actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>moaned</span>
  </em>
  <span> against his neck. “You’re so sensitive,” he remarked, his smile only dipping when Eddie didn’t respond. “Eddie?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry,” came his reply, voice muffled slightly as he nuzzled Waylon’s neck, trying desperately to hide.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry? What for?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For not knowing how best to . . . handle things.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right,” Waylon swallowed, returning his hand to Eddie’s head and stroking his hair. “It’s been a while for me too, you know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He felt Eddie shake his head. “Not like that. I meant as in I’ve never properly . . . wanted it. Not fully. Until now, of course,” the man fumbled. Waylon’s smile returned, unable to refrain from kissing the shell of Eddie’s ear and smiling wider as he felt Eddie emerge from his neck to meet his eyes as best he could. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, I’m flattered,” he replied, sweeping his thumb over Eddie’s bottom lip absent-mindedly. Eddie cleared his throat, trailing a finger over Waylon’s collar bones as he spoke. “Any idea where we go from here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon chuckled, “That depends. You wanna do the fucking? Or would you rather leave it all up to me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Darling,” Eddie choked. Waylon had never heard him so scandalised before. “That’s hardly appropriate.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neither is </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he rebuked, shifting his good leg until his knee brushed the persistent tent in Eddie’s trousers, smirking when his partner bucked against his thigh at the contact. “Either way it’s the blind leading the dismembered, so the choice is all yours.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie looked as if he wanted to disappear. The blush on his cheeks blossomed into a deep red, matching the marks Waylon left all over his chest. It was alarmingly sweet. Christ, he thought, maybe he could do with being medicated as well. In the effort to fuel his excitement his body had all but burnt through the alcohol in his system and now he was all too aware of the state he was in; not that he was in any state to actually end things, of course. “C’mere,” he coaxed, pulling Eddie across the bed. “I wanna try something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was an awkward struggle. On the way to their new position he somehow lost his trousers and shrinker, Eddie occasionally pausing their travels to pin him to the mattress and pepper him and his stump with butterfly kisses.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The two of them wound up at the head of the bed, with Waylon folded neatly in Eddie’s lap and Eddie leaning with his back against the headboard. Waylon, if it wasn’t already apparent, quickly discovered that he had an avid fascination with Eddie’s chest and neck, spending however extra long to cover them in another pattern of bruises and reducing Eddie to even more of a useless puddle of affection in the process. Underneath, Waylon could feel Eddie’s arousal straining against him, the confines of his trousers combined with Waylon’s weight clearly torturing the bigger man. Waylon tried to be sympathetic, but the sadist in him enjoyed seeing Eddie bite his lip and try to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>good</span>
  </em>
  <span> whenever he so much as rolled his hips, his breathing so shallow Waylon worried he might fall apart already.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, he began to slip further down Eddie’s body, covering his abdomen in hot open-mouthed kisses and humming as the muscle coiled and flexed under his teeth. There was a lot of Eddie, and he thought it only right to worship as much as he could. By the time he reached the buckle of his belt, Eddie was beside himself, his fingers weaving through Waylon’s hair to anchor himself. “Please,” he heard him beg, hips pushing up into Waylon’s hands, offering all he had.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Deciding to be merciful, Waylon made quick work of Eddie’s belt and trousers, helping the man shimmy out of them before sending them flying to the floor and nestling himself comfortably between his thighs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In only his underwear, there wasn’t much left to the imagination when it came to the sheer extent of Eddie’s arousal. Fanning his hand over him, Waylon was silent as he gripped the thick outline of Eddie’s cock through the thin material of his boxers, the fabric so strained it was a wonder the waistband hadn’t snapped ages ago. “Fuck,” he cursed, looking up at Eddie in disbelief.  A wistful glow hazed Eddie’s eyes: lust, pure and concentrated. In his hand, Eddie’s cock twitched and Waylon resumed his devotion. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tugging at the waistband of his boxers, Eddie’s cock sprung up in front of him, girthy and wanton and exuding a heat that was making Waylon’s head swim. The hands Eddie had in his hair began to massage his scalp, encouraging him; not that he needed it. He gripped the base and stuffed what he could down his throat, mind empty of all thoughts aside from the desire to have as much as he could of Eddie in his mouth, as though it was all his body was designed for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Almost instantly he was rewarded with Eddie fisiting his hair and letting out a long, relieved groan. “Waylon . . . Wayl— ah!” he panted, the grip he had on his hair brinking on painful as he shallowly bucked into his mouth. Waylon bobbed his head to match his thrusts, moaning whenever he tasted Eddie’s heartbeat pulse against his tongue. Eddie smelled hot, sweat tingeing the air. Looking fiercely up to him, he saw Eddie’s eyes flutter shut, his chest heaving as Waylon swallowed him. Waylon rutted the mattress, his own cock aching at the look on Eddie’s face. Fuck, has he ever been this turned on before? Maybe, maybe not. He doesn’t care. Past experiences don’t hold a candle to this, to now, to them. This was something else entirely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As his throat grew tired, he moved up and sucked at the tip of Eddie’s cock, greedily lapping at the shiny red head and digging his nails into the man’s strong thighs in an attempt to stop him shoving himself back down his throat. It was quite a stretch, his jaw stinging as he opened wide enough to hold Eddie in his mouth. It was hard to tell what was more obscene, the sound of him sucking Eddie off or the noises Eddie was making in response, the man’s dreadful attempts at being quiet only goading Waylon further.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coming up for air, Waylon kissed his way along and over the shaft of his cock, dipping his tongue into the slit and tasting pre-cum. Tasting Eddie. It was a bitter, addictive flavour.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before he could taste him again Eddie hooked a finger under his chin, tipping his head to gaze up at him. The look of lust that had previously clouded his gaze had dwindled some. Waylon’s stomach turned. He nuzzled the inside of one of Eddie’s thighs, asking between kisses, “Are you alright?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie smiled, but did so sadly. “Yes. Just . . . I just wish I could see you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon’s heart ached. Kissing his thigh one last time before pushing himself up, he nosed along Eddie’s happy trail before they reunited at each other’s lips, taking Eddie’s tongue into his mouth and letting him taste himself. “What next?” Eddie asked, hands coming to Waylon’s hips. Whatever upset he felt, it could wait.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon canted his hips, pressing his clothed erection against Eddie’s bare one, laughing quietly at the way Eddie bit his lip from the friction. “Lube, ideally,” he responded, fingers flitting over the expanse of Eddie’s chest, admiring his handiwork. He once had a fantasy of hurting Eddie, not long after he awoke in hospital. He used to dream of hurting him, bruising him. Does it still count if the bruises aren’t from the violence he initially planned?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie gulped, leaning an arm out until he grabbed the first handle on his bedside drawer. Out of the drawer he produced a small bottle of clear gel; half-full. He dropped it into Waylon’s hand, turning his head so he didn’t have to face him. Even without eyes he didn’t want to ‘see’ Waylon judge him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How’d you get this?” Waylon asked, turning the bottle in his hand. “I can’t imagine you putting it on your grocery list for Ben to get.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie grimaced. “I told him it’s a good substitute for eye drops.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And he believed that?” he said, raising an eyebrow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie shook his head. “Didn’t even question it. And if he did, he certainly didn’t say as such. Would </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> tell a blind man that he’s bad at being blind?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a beat of silence, and then they burst into laughter. When they came down Waylon popped the cap on the bottle and pulled Eddie to lie above him, coating the man’s thick fingers in lube. In his other hand, Eddie helped him ride up his underwear, ripping it off of him until Waylon lied naked and spread-thighed before him. He took Eddie’s wrist and moved his hand down to his ass, rubbing his slicked fingers around the ring of his entrance. Both of them sucked in a harsh breath, foreheads touching as Waylon guided Eddie’s fingertips inside of him, baring his teeth from the coolness of the gel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a while, Eddie learned enough to no longer need Waylon’s guidance and soon enough he was three fingers deep and Waylon had to resort to biting the back of his hand to keep himself from making a scene of himself. It also didn’t help that Eddie stumbled upon the location of his prostate and wasted little time in abusing it, crooking his fingers and scissoring at the spot until Waylon was a swearing, whimpering mess. “Eddie, ah, fuck!” he keened, back arching as his bedmate massaged the centre of nerves inside him, setting his skin alight. He reached down to jerk his cock in time with Eddie’s movements, language leaving him in place of moans and other guttural sounds as he touched himself. Eddie’s cock rubbed along his hip, it’s heavy presence both terrifying and igniting him as it smeared more pre-cum along his skin, dirtying him. Grabbing for the bottle of lube again, he squirted the rest into his hand and coated Eddie’s cock with it, his care met with another thrust of Eddie’s fingers that had him seeing stars.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After narrowly staving off an early orgasm, Waylon couldn’t take another moment and decided he needed Eddie </span>
  <em>
    <span>now</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “Eddie,” he whined, the man seemingly needing no more explanation, slipping his fingers out of him with a grotesquely wet </span>
  <em>
    <span>squelch</span>
  </em>
  <span> before picking him up like he was nothing. They rearranged themselves to a position more comfortable for Waylon’s thigh, the pair of them lying on their sides and curling into one another, Eddie as the ’big spoon’ and Waylon as his impatient subject. He ground his ass against Eddie, Eddie in turn kissing the nape of his neck, trembling behind him as if he could barely contain himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At last, Eddie grabbed the half of Waylon’s thigh, spreading him apart wide enough for Waylon to reach around and take Eddie’s cock into his hand, slowly edging each inch of him inside until he eventually bottomed out. “Oh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>darling</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Eddie slurred, biting Waylon’s shoulder. “You feel beautiful.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon merely whimpered, shoving himself harder down onto Eddie’s cock, his eyes falling shut as bliss overcame him. “You too,” he just about managed to get out,  later moaning into a pillow as Eddie began to rock his hips and stretch him impossibly wider. Unlike with his fingers, Eddie hardly had to search for Waylon’s prostate, the man so big he rubbed into it with every thrust.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All the time and peace that had led up to now abandoned them; the only thing left for them both to do was to hold onto one another and chase each other’s pleasures for as long as they could. Eddie wrapped an arm over Waylon’s front, his hand over his throat as he drove into him with increasing urgency. Waylon, at a loss for words, could only hold onto the hand Eddie had on his throat and try his best to keep up, the light behind his eyes flashing white whenever Eddie’s cock-head rubbed over his prostate, the sound of haggard breathing and skin ramming into skin and whatever slew of pet names Eddie was sighing into his ear being the only things within his dwindling comprehension.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ed— Eddie, Eddie— </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh</span>
  </em>
  <span> fuck!” Never had he felt so full, his whole body overwhelmed and fried. Eddie was no better, the man beside himself as he pounded into him. “Stay with me” Waylon grunted, gritting his teeth and Eddie’s nails tore into his thigh, spreading him wider and wider. The way Eddie was fucking him betrayed his lack of experience, though perhaps they’re both so desperate it doesn’t matter anymore if what they were doing was right, so long as it sated them. He doesn’t know why, but sex with Eddie —he’s thoroughly learning— is like being consumed. This wasn’t sex, it was a devouring. In the centre of the dragon’s den, he is not prey but rather the treasure Eddie covets. While he seriously doubts any of this is healthy, it certainly feels fucking amazing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All of a sudden he gasped, Eddie’s hand no longer closed around his throat but instead now wrapped tightly over his cock, stroking him in time with his thrusts. Over the sound of his own cries, he heard Eddie breath behind him. “I </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew</span>
  </em>
  <span> you’d feel so good. I knew it. Oh, darling, you feel amazing around me. Such a good—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Slut?” Waylon finished, voice clearer without Eddie’s arm to block his airflow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Darling,” Eddie warned, teeth grazing his neck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” he smirked. “Don’t— ah!— you remember that as well?” He was forced into silence for another moment by a particularly hard push of Eddie’s hips, knocking all the air out of his lungs. After that Eddie began to slow down, giving him time to recover. When he caught his breath back, he whispered, “It’s alright, you know. I don’t hate you for it, not anymore.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really?” Eddie replied, voice not anxious but dark with intrigue. “Is that why you wanted this? So you could act out some fantasy of yours?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. I want this because—</span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span>,  I want you. Everything else is decoration.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie was silent for a while, hand squeezing his cock, Waylon drooling pre-cum over his fingers. He was about to open his mouth, either to apologise or backtrack, but was cut short as Eddie began to fuck him harder than ever before, his hold on him turning crushing as he spat in Waylon’s ear, “Shame. You would have made a good whore.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Eddie,” Waylon said, meaning it to be a question but in reality it only came out as a cry as arousal pooled into his stomach, hotter than ever before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I still wish I could see you, you know. I’d have liked to have seen the slut you’ve become.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Eddie!” he yelped, the man’s hips pistoning into him at a rate hard enough to hurt if he was so damn turned on. Eddie seethed more into his ear, never making it clear if he thought Waylon was a whore or an angel, often breaking his abuse to praise him instead, caught between wanting total control and wanting to surrender. Either way, neither of them cared. Eddie was as much Waylon’s whore as he was Eddie’s, their bodies only fit for one another because that’s exactly how fate made them. His assailant was now his lover. Waylon had gone from victim to equal and Eddie succumbed to him entirely, whether he knew it or not. The man was running out of breath to berate him, and Waylon knew it was up to him to take him to the edge. “Eddie?” he said, bearing down on him and earning a blissed-out snarl as reward.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Darling, Waylon,” Eddie choked, voice hoarse. “I think I’m— ah! Are you ready, darling?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Waylon hissed, feeling Eddie throb inside him. “Cum for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie obeyed. Sheathing himself as deep as he possibly could and mewling against Waylon’s spine as he came, filling Waylon up until he felt ready to burst. “God,” Eddie groaned, spent but not yet done. Holding Waylon tightly against his chest, he nibbled the shell of his ear as he continued to pump his cock in his hand. “Your turn, darling,” he teased, the grin in his voice clear as Waylon fucked himself in Eddie’s fist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not having the breath for a warning, Waylon could only pant as he came, filthying Eddie’s hand as well as his stomach as he spilt and spilt, whole body convulsing against Eddie as he rocked through the final moments of his orgasm. Distantly, he heard Eddie murmur, “Beautiful.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They each took their time to come down from their highs. Eddie pulled out and Waylon, missing his warmth already, turned around and leant his cheek against his partner’s chest, idly stroking the contours of his build until he realised that they were both in desperate need of a shower.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you’re carrying me,” he huffed, covering Eddie’s chest in ten more kisses.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Darling, I don’t think even </span>
  <em>
    <span>I</span>
  </em>
  <span> can stand up right this instant,” Eddie chuckled, hand brushing down the length of his spine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But what about me? I’m all sticky,” he complained, but his heart wasn’t in it. Truth be told, he felt fit to sleep for a whole year if time would permit it. He wrinkled his nose. “Plus, we reek.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mmhmm,” was Eddie’s languid reply, the man’s eyes not even open.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t have time for a shower in the morning, Eddie,” Waylon went on, too proud to admit he was fighting a losing battle. “I have to leave early tomorrow if I’m gonna get to Tulsa on time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>That</span>
  </em>
  <span> made Eddie open his eyes, his peaceful expression descending into one of concern. “You’re not seriously leaving tomorrow, are you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course I am, why wouldn’t I?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But what about—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Us?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie frowned. “Well, yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It can still happen. Just come with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Waylon, you know I can’t. It’s not practical.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neither is me leaving you here to sit in the dark,” Waylon argued. He lifted his head and shuffled his face closer to Eddie’s, brushing away the stray black locks that had fallen over his eyes. “I don’t want you dying here, Eddie. I don’t want you left alone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then stay,” said Eddie, taking one of Waylon’s hands. “Stick around, keep me company. Help me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will,” he promised, kissing the tip of Eddie’s nose. “But you need to work with me, Eddie. I swear to you, there’s a way to help both of us.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie nodded, bringing Waylon’s hand to his lips and kissing each knuckle. Against his fingertips, he muttered, “Just don’t ever leave me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Never,” he swore, dropping his head back down to Eddie’s chest, the heartbeat that played beneath his ear being the most beautiful song he’s ever heard. “But we still need to shower.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>All we have now is the epilogue left folks!!!! Things will better explain themselves in the end, cuz I didn't wanna bloat the smut chapter with a whole pillow-debate so yeah, until chapter ten my lovelies &lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3<br/>hope you liked the word porn lol</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. All (Epilogue)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>welp folks, this is it!!!! I'll let you all get thru this thing first before I start gushing in the endnotes, but for now I just wanna let y'all know I really appreciate all of you sticking around to end for this thing. It's been such a motivation to see so many of you come back to each update!!!<br/>anyways, enjoy the end!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">
    <em>
      <span>Six Months Later</span>
    </em>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“People are gonna think you melt in direct sunlight if I put any more of this on you,” he remarked, rubbing the last of the sunscreen into Eddie’s shoulders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know how easily I burn,” Eddie grumbled. “We can’t all be as favoured by the elements as you are, darling.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Still, if anyone saw the amount we spend on sunscreen on a monthly basis they’d think I was Dracula’s assistant or something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hilarious, darling,” Eddie drawled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just kidding, sweets” he grinned, leaning forward to press a kiss between Eddie’s shoulder blades. It amazed him how much of a capacity his boyfriend (can you use the term ‘boyfriend’ for someone nearing sixty?) has for both courtesy and sarcasm. His smile spread as his fingers skimmed over the shallow scratches along Eddie’s back, himself having a set of his own from the other night. It felt good to mark each other differently now, to be covered in one another’s small mutilations, as if the damage they deliver each other now out of love can make up for the hurt they caused one another when they first met at the asylum. Waylon wondered briefly how many handprints and hickeys can equate for a severed leg.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were on a white-sand beach in the North of Mexico, looking into the clear blue waters of the Gulf of California. It took them two days to reach it, but it was well worth bad service station meals and car cramp. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Over the course of these past months, they had travelled progressively further and further away from their home, Waylon slowly but surely easing Eddie out of his comfort zone. Last month they were in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, before that they were hiking in Illinois (if you can really call what they did ‘hiking’, in reality, they spent perhaps an hour on the trail before Waylon’s stump started to sweat and they retreated back to the plush safety of their hotel bed); all of them brief, week-long trips to help Eddie grow more into his own after spending so long underground in a cell. Waylon wanted to show him the world, and so after that first night they spent together they came to a compromise the next morning. They agreed to stay with one another, so long as they learn to accommodate each other. Eddie would accompany Waylon on his trips and Waylon, in turn, promised to always bring Eddie home. It was a simple plan, one that has so far worked more or less smoothly. With Eddie’s small at-home tailoring business and Waylon fixing up an old laptop to work as an online engineer, the two of them accumulate just enough to splurge on their trips. Despite all the glorious places they’ve been, however, Waylon can’t remember much of their travels, because he’s been far too busy trying to commit Eddie to memory. He’s seen some incredible sights: Eddie laughing, Eddie sleeping, him humming around his fork when he tries a new dish, him singing to himself in the shower or as he cooks or works or cleans, Eddie when he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>drunk</span>
  </em>
  <span> (turns out the man grows ten more hands when he’s drinking, otherwise Waylon has no idea how he becomes so handsy, not that he’s complaining).  Each boundary widened has rewarded him with a new aspect of Eddie to adore. Now, on their last day in paradise, Waylon wanted to push Eddie even further. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He scooted closer towards him, pressing his front against Eddie’s back and resting his chin on top of his shoulder, grin widening as his breath tickled Eddie’s neck and made the man shudder. “Wanna go for a dip?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie snorted. “And risk getting lost at sea because I can’t see the shore? I’m perfectly fine to stay right here, thank-you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waylon rolled his eyes and moved around his lover, nonchalantly pushing himself into his lap. Eddie huffed but made no move to shove him away, his arms instead coming to rest on Waylon’s hips, thumbs digging underneath the loose waistband of his swimming trunks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on,” Waylon coaxed. “I promise you there’s nothing out there. I refuse to let you sit in the shade all afternoon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So rather than let me be safe and happy, you’d rather I risk my life drowning for your own entertainment?” Eddie pouted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yep. That’s just about the size of it.” He chuckled at the face Eddie made and peppered his face with more kisses, the smell of sunscreen filling his nose. “What if I sweetened the deal by saying we only go as far as you want? Providing you carry me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With his prosthesis not wholly designed for saltwater, he could only go as far as his knees before risking serious damage to the prosthetic. It lied upright now not far from where they lied on their towel, the rubber foot of it dug into the sand and serving as a coat stand for his and Eddie’s shirts. His trunks were long enough to cover his stump, not that it mattered. They were far away from anyone else, their nearest neighbours being a group half a mile off playing volleyball. Here, they were free of the anxiety of judgement that usually accompanies them whenever the two of them go anywhere; the anxiety mainly stemming from Eddie, who feared the prying eyes of those he couldn’t see. But that’s what’s Waylon’s for, to glare into those eyes and keep the both of them safe. He’d take his own prosthesis to the skull of anyone who tried to make Eddie feel out of place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please?” he pressed, nosing along Eddie’s jaw and listening to the sound of the man’s breathing thin out from the contact. “I didn’t drag you all the way out here for you to not at least </span>
  <em>
    <span>try</span>
  </em>
  <span> the water.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The hands Eddie had on his hips squeezed him for a moment, as if he were a human stress ball. As he revisited one of the several brightly coloured blemishes along Eddie’s neck that he created in their hotel room this morning, his lover finally relented. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Fine</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he sulked. “But just a dip, no more.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Victorious, Waylon tightly hugged Eddie’s neck, nearly choking the poor man before releasing him. “Let’s go then!” he squirmed, fidgeting in Eddie’s hold. “Up and at ‘em.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right now?” Eddie whined.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I mean at night when the water’s freezing and the sharks circle to get my other leg. Yes, right now!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After some more light bickering, Eddie eventually made it to his feet with Waylon in his arms, the smaller man acting as his rock-detector as they navigated their way to the water. “Almost there,” Waylon cheered on for what might have been the twentieth time. “Almost . . . almost . . . and </span>
  <em>
    <span>voilà</span>
  </em>
  <span>. You are now ankle-deep in the Pacific Ocean. How’s it feel?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wet,” Eddie mumbled, “but not too horrible.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll take ‘not too horrible’,” Waylon chirped. “And look, no sea monsters have swum up to take a chunk outta your ass—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Yet</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span> “—so how’s about we take our chances at the waist-deep mark?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright,” Eddie sighed. “But you’re on sea monster-watch.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Aye-aye, Cap’n.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aside from a slight hiccup where Eddie’s foot became momentarily caught in some seaweed and Waylon had to assure him that no, it’s not Cthulhu just keep going, minutes later and they were both half-submerged in the water, Eddie’s grip on him never lessening even as the water reduced some his weight. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The waves were at their calmest around this time of day, the water warm and gently rocking them. Waylon, thinking that he could relieve himself of his sea monster duties for a short while, relaxed further into Eddie’s arms, resting his head along his chest and closing his eyes. For however long, there was a silence between them, until Eddie coughed slightly and Waylon opened his eyes, knowing all of his lover’s small cues off by heart, this one signalling that he was about to ask something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Darling?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Could you . . . describe it? The water I mean . . .”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He smiled. “Sure.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Make no mistake, he is nobody’s poet, but for Eddie, he certainly tried. He explained that the water was clear like glass, and on the horizon it was such a perfect strip of blue you’d think it was an illusion painted across the sky. He then took liberties and moved on past the water and onto the atmosphere above it, how it was just as clean and faultless as what lies below. Then, he talked about the beach, the perfect white sheen of the sand that shined like a bed of diamonds under the sun. He talked of the greenery beyond the beach, then the small town that sat amongst it all further up. It was a brief description, and he doesn’t doubt there are people far better fitted for setting up such a scene, but it seemed to be enough for Eddie, who, when Waylon looked back up to him, saw that the man had cast his white gaze down to him. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That</span>
  </em>
  <span> was Waylon’s paradise; those two pale worlds, blank canvases to most but he knew better. He knew the ability of those eyes, dead or not, had. He knew how they could glimmer under moonlight, could gleam in the midst of laughter, thaw at the onslaught of sadness and haze in the throes of passion. He knew that even without being able to see him, Eddie saw Waylon better than many ever dared. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After he left the hospital following his amputation, he often got the well-intentioned question of how he lost it. He often gave some flippant explanation, childhood illness being his usual go-to (lover’s tiff being his darker reply), but he never said what he wanted to say. What he wanted to tell them, is that he didn’t lose it. Losing something means you don’t know where it is, but he knows exactly where his leg is. It’s being used for study purposes in some Coloradan medical college, donated on his behalf after his doctor told him he could either gift it or burn it. When Lisa was visiting him, he made a joke about how he ought to give it to her and the boys, as something to remember him by. Lisa smiled, but she didn’t laugh, which meant she was trying not to cry. He now childishly imagines it floating in some big pickle jar, with a tag around the big toe with his name and old phone number on it, should he ever want it back; hardly missing. In fact, it's probably the only part of it that people can pinpoint any more. It’ll certainly outlive him, that’s for sure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t know why he’s thinking of this as he stares out across the ocean, picturing his lonely leg sitting on some dusty shelf hundreds of miles away. Maybe he misses it, the same way Eddie must miss being able to see. He sometimes wonders if they both had to lose parts of themselves to come together as a whole later.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sometime later they returned to the shore, Eddie spreading Waylon out along their beach towel and settling alongside him. Waylon laughed as he watched his lover try to stifle a yawn. He turned onto his side, trailing a hand over the warm muscle on Eddie’s waist, the man’s skin dewed with remnants of the ocean. Over the course of their relationship (if such a surface-level term can even begin to describe what they have) they have both gradually softened, not only in mind but in body, too. Waylon, no longer solely eating to survive, and Eddie, finally having an excuse to cook more than just soup, have each become less gaunt in structure and have since filled out in certain places loneliness had kept hard and hollow. Affection and age have finally caught up with them, and so far it feeds them well. He pinched a piece of Eddie’s waist, feeling the sliver of weight that the man has gained over the months. Eddie grunted, moving to cushion his head with his arm as he prepared to nap for the rest of the afternoon. “Tired?” Waylon prompted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only a little,” Eddie yawned again, the whiteness of his eyes dimming as they threatened to close. “Neither of us exactly got our allotted nine hours of rest last night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, I don’t remember you asking for any breaks. If memory serves correctly, you were quite enthusiastic when I suggested a round two—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright, alright,” the bigger man blushed. “Point taken.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a smirk Waylon sat back up and rooted through his bag, retrieving the book he bought at a kiosk earlier with the intention of reading it while Eddie slept. Tomorrow morning they’ll have to check out of their hotel and make their way back home, back towards another different kind of paradise. He knows the honeymoon needs to end at some point; Eddie’s medication does him some good, but therapy would do him better. Hell, Waylon might join him, so long as they can find a therapist that won’t report the two of them after they explain how they got together. Psychologists would have a field day with them, and he doesn’t ever want to put Eddie in front of a doctor that’ll just treat him like a lab rat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But until that time comes, and it will come, they shall travel, or flee, depending on which way you see it. Perhaps they’re simply trying to postpone responsibility for their actions, and Waylon would be the first to admit that that’s probably the case. He daydreams about his old family less and less these days and he doesn’t know if that’s a sign of growth or a betrayal; either way, he sleeps better most nights. He still packs his gun whenever they go anywhere, not for himself and certainly not for Eddie, but more as a reminder. A reminder of a time when he thought he might need to use it on the man lying peacefully at his side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re thinking,” Eddie hummed, eyes closed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked down at him, raising an eyebrow. “How do you always know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sixth sense.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Actually, without your eyes, I think that only makes it a fifth sense.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ha-ha.” Then, Eddie opened his eyes by only a slice, the slight peek of white like the horizon on a dead planet. “Seriously, darling. What’s on your mind?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You,” he admitted. “And me. Us, I suppose.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Us? What about us?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shook his head, bending down to kiss the corner of Eddie’s scarred mouth. “It can wait.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>ta-dah!! Hopefully things weren't too bittersweet, but now that we're all here I just wanna say a huge thanks to anyone and everyone that read this mess, commented, left kudos or just added one point to the hits. Seeing that other people have enjoyed this has been so nice to see and I've lived for all y'all's comments lmao.<br/>Alright, I can't put it off for much longer, but this really is where the fic ends &lt;:O so I'll leave ya with a big forehead smooch and a goodbye for now!! Love you all! &lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>First chapter bb! Sorry for the cliffhanger, but next chapter should be up real soon!! Stay-tuned for more &gt;:3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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